Series: PHI 3-0 TOR
Starters:
TOR:
VanVleet
Trent
Anunoby
Siakam
Achiuwa
PHI:
Harden
Maxey
Green
Harris
Embiid
Not a whole lot of relevance to touch on with team rankings after three head to heads, so some quick hitters on rotation thoughts:
- Precious starting is my preference, but he or Birch is fine. Have to start big. Small starting group barely played but when they did they were immediately caved in, couldn't defend the 76ers at all. Better to save those looks for later in the game and when Embiid sits.
- Flynn has been surprisingly effective defensively (on Harden and Maxey especially) and hasn't been damaging on offence, pleasantly invisible on that end for the most part. Has the best on/off net rating split on the team in his 31 minutes. Khem not far behind, which is great, though I've been more impressed with Precious overall. Both Malachi and Khem are excellent low minute (10-15 a game) contributors and should keep their roles going forward.
- Pascal and Fred simply have to be better. Pascal should be able to if we can buy him rest, Fred maybe not because he still looks hobbled. But they have two of the three worst on/off splits on the team, putting our top lineups with both guys up against Philly's best looks hasn't gone well. Sadly kind of just have to hope for the best from those two, team won't be able to put up much fight unless they step up. They are both sub-50% in TS% on the series (actually Gary is too but we can forgive him his two sick games), just can't happen. Both playmaking decently, but not enough to make up for their lack of real scoring. Scottie was pretty great in terms of efficiency at a decent usage when he played, so maybe he helps. OG has been incredible (69% TS% on 23% usage).
- The third of those bottom three in on/offs is the worst on the team, and sadly it is Thad Young, our vet added for the playoff run. Thad's played 19 minutes and we've been outscored by 21 in them. That includes getting outscored by 9 in his 6 minutes in game 3, and gosh it would have been nice if that had been 7 or 8 instead! Whatever the reason, be it fit, injury, or just poor play, I don't think he can see the court in game 4.
- Scottie has basically no data on him due to just playing in the one game where everyone was caved in, but his presence has helped bench units all year, so I'm expecting big things if he can sub into Thad's minutes and along with Malachi and a much healthier looking Gary help scale back Pascal and Fred's minutes and usage.
- In the first two games our scoring was really effective, we just had literally no defence to speak of. In game three our defence finally showed up but suddenly our scorers couldn't score. Going to need some success on both ends - hopefully with the defensive adjustments and Scottie back we can see the best of both worlds.
Go Raps!
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