Category: Sports News

How the 76ers' figured it out on defense at the last possible moment originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

We waited all year for this 76ers team to show up. We knew it was possible, we just kept wondering if it would really happen.

It took the 76ers 86 games to figure it out – 82 regular-season games and the first four games of the Celtics series – but they figured it out at the last possible moment.

How to defend at a consistently high level against an explosive offense for 48 minutes. And how to do it three games in a row, two of them on the road, when a loss ends your season.

This was one of the most remarkable, improbable, incredible three-game stretches in 76ers history. And it happened because they stifled the Celtics’ offense like very few teams ever have.

The first 86 games of the season, the 76ers allowed 116 points per game and they allowed opposing teams to shoot 47 percent from the field and 35 percent from 3. Middle of the pack across the board.

Those are not championship numbers. Those are not numbers that scare a team like the Celtics, who averaged 115 points per game during the regular season and made 37 percent of their 3’s.

But once Joel Embiid returned, an amazing thing happened.

The 76ers turned into a defensive force, and there was nothing the Celtics – with all their offensive weapons – could do about it.

Embiid’s first game back was Game 4 and that was another Celtics blowout, the one that put the 76ers in a 3 games to 1 hole.

But these last three games were a model in how defending at a high level can propel an underdog No. 7 seed that hadn’t won three straight road games against playoff-bound teams since 2023 past a No. 2 seed that never loses at home.

This is a Celtics team that averaged 115 points per game, shot 47 percent from the field and 37 percent from 3, and the last games they averaged 97 points, shot 41 percent from the field and 28 percent from 3.

Ballgame.

The 76ers really wore the Celtics down these last three games, and by the fourth quarter the Celtics couldn’t get good shots, forced 3 after 3 and just got run off the court in the final minutes.

In these last three fourth quarters, the Celtics shot 33 percent from the field and 19 percent from 3. The Celtics are built on burying 3’s. They made 1,268 during the regular season, 9^th-most in NBA history, and they shot 37 percent, tied for 5^th-highest in the league this year.

But when they needed them the most, the 76ers kept denying them. They kept bombing away and missing and it turned out when the 3’s weren’t falling they didn’t have an answer. 

The Celtics attempted 323 3’s in this series, 2^nd-most ever in any postseason series, behind the Rockets’ 357 in their 2020 Western Conference First-Round series win over Oklahoma City.

You only take that many 3’s when you can’t do anything else.

Most of those 3’s were contested but they also missed a lot of open looks (I’m looking at you Derrick White) just because the 76ers had them so beat up by the end of the game thanks to a physicality and intensity we rarely saw in the regular season.

And you know what happens when one team keeps missing 3’s. Long rebounds and fast breaks, and that’s how the 76ers outscored Boston by an average of 55-41 in the fourth quarter of these last three wins.

The Celtics never went three games in a row scoring 100 or fewer points during the regular season and they actually haven’t done that in the regular season since 2021. Then the 76ers held them to 93, 90 and 100 in three straight elimination playoff games.

The 76ers’ neutralized the Celtics’ two studs, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, late in the series. Tatum missed Game 7 but shot 43.8 percent and 33 percent from 3 from the field in Games 5 and 6 and was minus-20, and Brown shot 42 percent from the field and 32 percent from 3 the last three games with a minus-57, the worst plus-minus of his 10-year career over any three-game span.

Last time the Celtics had a three-game stretch in the regular season scoring fewer than 300 points and shooting below 41 percent from the field and 30 percent from 3 was 2021.

So this was the Celtics’ worst three-game offensive stretch in five years, and it came at the hands of a 76ers team that was mediocre defensively during the regular season and needed to win a play-in game just to reach the postseason.

Nick Nurse preached defense all year, but with injuries and the Paul George suspension, he just never had the people to play the brand of defense he wanted. It took 86 games and Embiid returning to action 2 ½ weeks after an appendetomy for it all to come together.

But when it did, it was beautiful.

The 76ers won this series by denying the Celtics what they do best when they needed it the most.

If reports are to be believed, the Houston Rockets have already made a decision on one of the biggest questions of the offseason. According to The Athletic’s Kelly Iko, the Rockets have “no plans” to move on from either Ime Udoka or Rafael Stone.

The report says:

“At this juncture, there are no plans to move on from either Udoka or general manager Rafael Stone. Ownership has remained steadfast in its belief in a three-pronged leadership sector because of a combination of the turnaround in recent years and consecutive 50-win seasons, the latter of which was marked by major injuries, resulting in confidence from the top down.

“One of the prevailing internal beliefs concerning this roster is assuming that Fred VanVleet and Steven Adams are healthy, along with Durant, the Rockets aren’t too far removed from Western Conference powers Oklahoma City and San Antonio.”

So there you have it, folks. It’s sounding like the coach and GM are staying. I’m not ready to give up on Rafael Stone just yet, but Udoka is trying my patience — like he is for many Rockets fans. It would be nice to see Udoka welcome an offensive coordinator, but I wonder if he’s too much of a control freak for that to be sucessful.

That leaves any potential Rockets changes to come via the lineup, and my biggest fear is sounding like it might also be close to coming true — that the Rockets make no roster changes and simply run it back with Adams and FVV and keep their fingers crossed.

The team needs more ball handling and shooting and less forwards, and I don’t think that’s a secret to anyone. They also need another big, since Clint Capela isn’t used much by Udoka. I’d personally love to see the Rockets trade Durant. With KD not getting any younger, how many years does he have left at this level? One? Two? I think the one thing we learned this year is that the Rockets are more than one or two years away. For this reason alone, I’d like to see the Rockets move KD for assets that allow the Rockets to retool in a sort of soft rebuild. That’s to say nothing of the KD burner incident that compromised another locker room, especially since it’s essentially been released that it was all true.

While we wait on roster changes, however, get ready for more Rafael Stone and Ime Udoka. It appears that they’re not going anywhere.

Ah, yes, it’s the Spurs-Wolves second-round clash that everyone anticipated! No one around here penciled in a Spurs-Nuggets tilt, and there’s also no evidence of yours truly crashing out following San Antonio’s final regular-season loss to Denver.

Now that we have our matchup set, it’s time to dive into some stylistic battles that could take place. Given the small sample size of the first round, the stats used will come from the regular season, and Minnesota’s numbers will reflect data from lineups without Donte DiVincenzo and Anthony Edwards — although the latter could come back later in the series.

Let’s start with the Wolves’ shot diet.

Minnesota’s shot chart

The Wolves take 36.3% of their shots at the rim (top 5 league-wide) while converting on just 64.5% of those attempts (bottom5). It goes without saying that Wemby will make their lives much tougher, as opponents are shooting just 60.8% in that area with him playing. More importantly, only 26.2% of attempts are at the rim when Wemby’s on, and the Alien’s presence will force Minnesota to shoot from farther out.

Assuming Wemby camps in the paint due to Gobert’s lacklustre offensive game, the Wolves will focus on pull-up 3s and long 2s. Some of their guards caught fire in round 1, but the full-season stats indicate that Minnesota is a below-average shooting team from every area of the floor except above-the-break 3s, and even that came on extremely low volume. The Wolves will need to find other sources of offense if their shooting reverts to the norm, and one potential solution is to crash the boards.

Offensive rebounding

The biggest matchup advantage Minnesota has over San Antonio is their size at the forward positions. None of the Spurs’ forwards can match up physically against Julius Randle and Naz Reid, which could allow the Wolves to fatten up on the offensive glass. Still, that is easier said than done, as the Wolves’ 28.6% OREB is decidedly average, while the Spurs’ 74.1% DREB ranked first league-wide.

If they decide to go down this route, Minnesota will need to be comfortable taking shots deeper in the paint to force Wemby to commit, leaving the backline more exposed. Even so, there’s a good chance that the Alien will either block the shot or recover fast enough to grab the rebound. The Wolves might be forced to play lineups featuring all of McDaniels, Reid, Randle, and Gobert — a quartet that saw minutes in the Denver series but only logged 71 possessions together in the regular season.

Transition opportunities

If the Wolves prioritize the offensive glass, then they’ll be giving the Spurs easier opportunities to run. Minnesota would be playing into a strength of San Antonio’s, as they rank 6th and 8th, respectively, in transition frequency and points per play. On the other hand, the Wolves could decide that the defensive tradeoff is not worth the potential offensive gain, and they could go big to prioritize defensive boards instead. Minnesota increased their DREB from 66.7% in the regular season (9th percentile) to 79.2% in round 1 against Denver (95th), and they’ll prevent the Spurs from getting easy second-chance points if this continues.

The Wolves could push the pace themselves if defensive rebounding remains a priority. They ranked 6th in transition points per play in the regular season, and both teams were top 10 in preventing opposing transition opportunities too. Fast break points are clearly an emphasis for both teams, and the winner in that category could be determined by the size of Minnesota’s lineups and which side of the rebounding battle they prioritize.

Pace

This one is very simple: both teams are better when they play fast. Minnesota and San Antonio ranked 10th and 12th, respectively, in pace in the regular season, and are now tied for 1st and 3rd in the playoffs. The Wolves were able to take Denver out of rhythm by speeding them up, but doing so against the Spurs would only benefit the black and silver.

For San Antonio, Stephon Castle specifically needs to play with speed and purpose. Portland cut the Spurs’ large lead down to single digits in game five of round 1 because Castle started walking the ball up without getting into any action until the shot clock almost expired. However, San Antonio’s offense is almost impossible to stop when he’s running handoffs and attacking closeouts, which is how the Spurs built their lead.

X-Factor: Rudy Gobert

When Gobert’s been played off the floor in the past, it was always due to issues with his offense, not defense. That problem could rear its ugly head again in this series if his lack of a post game and shooting allows Wemby to camp in the paint, allowing the latter to shut off Minnesota’s drives and rim attempts. Given the ability of the Spurs’ guards to fight through screens and defend, Gobert won’t be able to make as big an impact as a screener either, which could render him close to a zero on offense.

Defensively, Gobert’s matchup with Wemby will be the polar opposite of the one he had against Jokic. Wemby’s lob threat as a roll man and his ability to come off screens will force Gobert to guard in space, which is why I expect him to be assigned to Castle instead. Similar to what Portland did, Gobert can sag off the second-year guard (who quietly hit over 40% from three on five attempts a game against the Blazers) and stay in the paint, while physical forwards like Randle and Reid match up with Wemby instead. The Spurs found counters to this strategy by running hand-offs with Castle (as was shown above), but that might be the lesser of all evils given the offensive versatility that San Antonio has.

Another wrinkle in the Gobert-Wemby matchup is the number of corner threes the Spurs generate. In the regular season, Wemby’s roll gravity helped San Antonio take 13.8% of their shots from the corners when he played, which was one of the highest recorded numbers ever. However, the Wolves are elite at preventing shots from the corners, conceding just 8.6% of such attempts to their opponents, which was one of the five lowest marks league-wide. If Gobert can guard the paint alone, the other Wolves players can focus on playing man defense and prevent open looks instead of worrying about packing the paint to stop lobs to Wemby.

HOUSTON — Austin Reaves couldn’t pinpoint exactly when it happened. 

But he remembered what sparked the Lakers’ defensive turnaround, which has carried over for 3 ½ months, through their first-round playoff series victory over the Rockets, which ended with Friday’s 98-78 Game 6 victory at Toyota Center.

Nearly midway through the regular season, the Lakers ranked 26th in defensive rating, performing even worse on the less glamorous end of the floor than even their biggest detractors expected entering the season.

Only a few of the worst teams in the NBA (Kings, Pelicans, Wizards and Jazz) ranked worse than them defensively at the time. 

The Lakers knew a change was needed, and it came during their 110-93 win over the Raptors on Jan. 18, when they started playing more zone defense than they had up to that point in the season.

Positive results immediately followed, with the Lakers ranking as an above-average defensive team (13th) in their 14 games leading into the All-Star break en route to ranking 12th in defensive rating over their final 42 games.

“Our voices, we were talking more, we were rotating more — that was like a starter for us to kind of get the feel of what that communication looks like,” Reaves said. “And then we could change defenses, we could throw different schemes.”

Even though the Lakers barely played zone defense against the Rockets, the carryover from what coach JJ Redick and his staff were looking to emphasize was evident.

“When we started first playing zone, it did force everybody to communicate with one another and force guys that other teams probably wouldn’t see as communicators to be able to communicate, which ultimately put them in the right position because now they’re talking,” Marcus Smart said. “Now, they’re keeping their head on a swivel, they’re seeing things. So, I definitely have to agree with [Reaves] on that when we started to play that zone. And obviously we didn’t play that much zone in this series, but it helped us when we did play our man, to understand that everybody out there has to talk, and you don’t want to be the weak link.”

It was a collective defensive effort that got the Lakers their first playoff series victory since 2023, starting with Smart and LeBron James (in Year 23) setting the tone.

“In the NBA, you need to have an openness,” Redick said. “And whether that’s LeBron who’s been an All-Defensive player, arguably should have been Defensive Player of the Year multiple times, Smart’s been Defensive Player of the Year; they just buy into whatever schemes that we come up with. When you get buy-in from those guys, it’s easy to sort of execute because then the accountability piece is there.”

Deandre Ayton controlled the interior, whether it was strong 1-on-1 defense as the primary matchup against Rockets All-Star center Alperen Sengun or closing out possessions with defensive rebounds. 

Sengun scored 32 points on 15-of-37 shooting (40.5%) when Ayton was the closest defender to him and only drew one shooting foul, according to the league’s matchup data.

The Lakers were a significantly better defensive rebounding team when Ayton was on the floor, even if he wasn’t the one grabbing the board.

He led the Lakers with 7.3 defensive rebounds per game, including 9.3 in the final three games of the series against the Rockets, who were the best offensive rebounding team in the league.

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“You have to have some type of stop sign where enough is enough,” Ayton said. “You have to match their physicality in a way where it’s contagious to your teammates as well. So I just tried to play as I am, the biggest dude on the court, and just go out and get every damn rebound. It got to a point where I didn’t even know I was hitting guys and giving certain blows, just off boxing out and to where you keep hitting them, hitting them, they eventually break.”

The Lakers flipped the script on expectations.

Not just entering the playoffs with Luka Doncic and Reaves sidelined before Reaves played in the last two games of the series.

But even going all the way back to last offseason when the roster was put together.

The Lakers weren’t expected to be the kind of team that could ride their defense to postseason success.

The series against the Rockets showed the progress they made. 

“It means everything,” Smart said. “It shows our resilience, and it shows the belief that we have in the next man up. It shows the belief that the coaching staff has in us to be able to, you know, put us in the right position. It just shows that no matter how depleted we are, we’re always going to go out there and compete and give everything we got and our trust in each other.”

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Fans of "old-school basketball" must be loving this series, with both the Orlando Magic and Detroit Pistons leaving it all on the floor.

Our SGP for Game 7 expects more defense, with Cade Cunningham doing all he can to complete the 3-1 comeback.

We've also got you covered with more NBA picks and analysis in our Magic vs. Pistons predictions for May 3.

Our best Magic vs Pistons SGP for Game 7

SGP leg #1: Cade Cunningham Over 44.5 points + rebounds + assists

In the playoffs, Cade Cunningham ranks second in points per game, first in field goal attempts, third in free throw attempts, and fourth in minutes.

His 23 field goal attempts are up from 18.6 in the regular season. His free throws have increased from six per game to 10.7, and his minutes have shot up from 33.9 to 40.5.

Cunningham leads all players in postseason usage at 35.3%. The Detroit Pistons go as far as Cade takes them, and the team will need him to stuff the stat sheet in order to complete the series comeback and avoid an upset by the No. 8 seed.

SGP leg #2: Pistons -9

The Orlando Magic have outplayed the Pistons for most of the series, but the psychological aspect of competition comes into play here.

The Magic were up 22 points at halftime in front of the home crowd before suffering a historic meltdown, blowing their chances to complete the upset and advance to the second round.

The Pistons were clearly feeling themselves at the end of Game 6, and they’ve got swagger and momentum to go with home-court advantage. Orlando has got to be reeling, and I’ll bet on Detroit to win this one by double digits.

SGP leg #3: Under 203

Scoring has come at a major premium in this series, and the game total Under has hit in four of six matchups. The game total has gone Under 203.5 in three of six, including two of the last three.

Both teams failed to record 100 points three times in the series, and I’ll take the Under in what should be a gritty, physical dogfight, 2004-style.

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Get Zak Hanshew's full breakdown of this game, including his best bet, plus the latest NBA odds, injuries, and betting trends, in his Magic vs Pistons predictions for Game 7.

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