Sixers vs. Nets Game 3: What Just Happened?
Will they ever just play a normal game?
Adam Aaronson, whose legal name is Sixers Adam (@SixersAdam on Twitter), covers the Sixers for The Rights To Ricky Sanchez. He believes cantaloupe is the best food in existence, and is brought to you by the Official Realtor of The Process, Adam Ksebe.
It’s always said that you never know what is going to happen in the NBA playoffs. And as they always do, the Sixers took that motto and took it to the most extreme extent imaginable.
The Sixers defeated the Brooklyn Nets Thursday night, 102-97, in one of the most chaotic playoff games I can recall. There were multiple ejections, there were multiple dust-ups, there were multiple injury scares… just about everything you can imagine happened in Game 3 of the first round of the playoffs -- but luckily for the Sixers, it ended up as the win that put them up 3-0 in the series against Brooklyn.
This game was turned upside down almost immediately. Just two minutes and 26 seconds into the game, Joel Embiid lost his cool: as Nets center Nic Claxton stood over him following a foul call, Embiid kicked in the direction of what we will call Claxton’s “groin area.”
Given recent events involving Draymond Green of the Golden State Warriors, and even when just observing general practices in the NBA, it seemed obvious that Embiid would be given a Flagrant 2 foul, which triggers an automatic ejection. Frankly, it should have been -- Embiid, who has been composed for much of the last three years, completely lost the kind of poise he’s exhibited all season.
“I don’t remember,” Embiid said of the early incident with a grin postgame. “It takes me a lot of time to process the game.”
Ultimately, the frontrunner for the NBA’s Most Valuable Player award was only given a Flagrant 1 foul. Instead of seeing their best player suffer an instant ejection, the Sixers were able to settle in after a hot Brooklyn start and get things rolling. Of course, this was an absolutely massive break for Embiid and the Sixers. Certainly there wouldn’t be anything even more controversial to happen the rest of the night… right?
Wrong! After the Sixers took control of the game and held a substantial lead over Brooklyn, they proceeded to blow that lead in the opening minutes of the second half. And just as they felt on the verge of reclaiming control, they took a punch right to the gut.
With 13 seconds left in the third quarter, Harden tried to create separation from Nets wing Royce O’Neale on a step-back and was called for an offensive foul after O’Neale fell to the ground in pain.
The officials announced they were reviewing the play for a potential flagrant foul. Honestly, I laughed. From every angle I saw, Harden pushed off very slightly and O’Neale sold the hell out of the contact. And then all of a sudden, referee Tony Brothers announced that Harden committed a Flagrant 2 foul and was ejected from the game.
Asked about his reaction to the call, Sixers forward Tobias Harris, perhaps wisely, did not comment.
“My reaction is that I don’t want to be fined by the NBA, so I am going to not say anything about that.”
It was genuinely one of the most jaw-dropping calls I can remember. And so the Sixers were without their point guard for the entire fourth quarter. After a hot start, Tyrese Maxey had cooled off. Embiid was struggling to score against Brooklyn’s aggressive double-teams. With all of those things and an amped up crowd working against them, the Sixers were on the ropes.
That is, until Maxey decided to make it his night.
The Sixers found themselves trailing by three points with as many minutes left in the game. Harden was in the locker room, Embiid was one foul away from fouling out, and the momentum was clearly in Brooklyn’s favor.
Maxey took charge of a playoff game in a way that would be impressive for an established veteran. No matter that he is merely an upbeat 22-year old kid, this moment was going to belong to him.
Maxey came off a screen and put in a little floater. He halted another Brooklyn run with a tough three only a minute later. Then came a mid-range jumper to tie the game. And finally, with the game still tied and 44 seconds left on the clock, he rose up and nailed a three to give the Sixers a lead they would not relinquish. In about 150 seconds, he scored 10 straight points. And just like that, a truly ugly game turned from a frustrating loss into a gutty win.
But when you talk about the Sixers being gutty tonight, it starts and ends with PJ Tucker. Tucker, often maligned during the regular season, has shown up in the playoffs exactly like the Sixers had anticipated when they gave him a three-year deal over the summer. Tucker made hustle play after hustle play that kept the Sixers in the game.
I asked Embiid about when he specifically said his team needed a player like Tucker after Tucker’s Miami Heat eliminated the Sixers from the playoffs, and if Tucker has lived up to his expectations.
“He kicked our butt last year on the offensive rebounds,” Embiid said, before reciting the details of several game-changing plays Tucker made.
Doc Rivers was effusive in his praise of Tucker, someone who he has gone to great lengths to defend all season.
“PJ Tucker won the game for us,” Rivers said. “He kept everything alive… He was amazing. It’s amazing how we focus so much on scoring… He was huge. He was the toughest guy on the floor tonight.”
There is a lot to patch up after a performance like this. The Sixers’ execution was lackluster, to say the least, but they found a way to win as a collective group -- and that’s all Rivers could have asked for.
“If this wasn’t a team win, there’s no such thing,” Rivers said. “We could have easily gone away in this game, and we didn’t do that.”
“To me, that says a lot about the character of our team.”