May 02, 2024
Brad Penner/USA TODAY Sports
Joel Embiid committed nine turnovers in Game 5 against the New York Knicks, and his season was saved by the late-game heroics of Tyrese Maxey. The reigning NBA MVP must be better moving forward if the Sixers want to complete a 3-1 series comeback and advance to the second round of the NBA Playoffs.
If you still have not caught your breath after the Sixers' thrilling Game 5 triumph over the New York Knicks, I cannot blame you. With the Sixers looking lifeless and the Madison Square Garden's sellout crowd smelling blood in the water, this year's Most Improved Player in the NBA, 23-year-old Tyrese Maxey, hit the two shots of his life in what would become the game of his life.
Postseason play is always about not getting too high or too low. So, just as the Sixers talked about the need to flush their memory of a devastating Game 2 collapse at the hands of the Knicks before reviving their chances with a Game 5 victory, they will also need to put Maxey's epic performance in the rearview mirror as they once again battle for the right to live another day.
Here are three storylines I'll be watching as the Sixers host the Knicks on Thursday night in hopes of forcing a Game 7:
In each of the first five games of this series, whichever team has won the war on the glass had gone on to win the game. Of course, it is not exactly that sample: rebounding numbers are largely determined by how frequently a team is able to force missed shots and generate opportunities to grab boards in the first place. But in this particular matchup, so far it has been an indicative barometer of how things are going.
The Knicks are known for their hard-nosed style of play, and even before the series started their ability to crash the glass effectively and create new looks via offensive rebounding was well-respected. They grabbed 23 offensive rebounds in their Game 1 victory, and similarly dominated the Sixers on the boards in their fourth-quarter turnaround in their win in Game 4.
In Game 5, the Sixers put together what was likely their best collective rebounding performance of the series. Joel Embiid, who committed nine turnovers and struggled mightily as a scorer, came through not just with his impenetrable defense in the game's final minutes, but with tremendous effort on the glass all night long. Embiid grabbed 16 rebounds in all across his 48 minutes of play, compared to 14 combined boards for the Knicks' center rotation throughout the game.
A collective effort is critical to rebounding -- even one tremendous glass-cleaner can never do the work all on their own. But one player can set the tone for their team, and Embiid -- who pulled six rebounds in the first quarter alone -- did just that.
Tobias Harris -- who played perhaps his best and most important game as a Sixer in Game 5, posting 19 timely points on 7-11 shooting from the field and 3-6 shooting from beyond the arc -- grabbed eight rebounds in addition to his scoring, and Nic Batum equaled that rebounding total as well.
Mitchell Robinson was effective on the glass in his limited minutes for the Knicks, grabbing three offensive rebounds. But the rest of New York's rotation combined for only three more of them. On the rebounding front, consider the mission accmploiushed for Sixers head coach Nick Nurse's squad in Game 5. It is critical that they carry over that effort and execution into Game 6.
The Sixers and Knicks are two teams that were ravaged by injury after injury throughout the regular season. It made their paths to the NBA playoffs much tougher, but perhaps the adversity made them better-prepared for what was to come.
Embiid has been dealing with multiple ailments, between his recurring knee issues and a case of Bell's palsy, and for much of this series has not looked like anything close to the best version of himself. He looked as fatigued as ever in the fourth quarter of Game 5, ultimately needing to be rested for just over a minute of action more than halfway through the final frame of an elimination game -- nearly unheard of for a player of Embiid's caliber. Maxey has logged a ridiculous workload in this series, both in terms of playing time and on-court role. He may seem like a video game character with the "stamina" setting toggled off, but the Sixers have to be careful. Kelly Oubre Jr., who has started for the Sixers all postseason long, labored through a significant illness in Game 5 that limited his minutes.
Things are not any easier on the other side, though: Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau, infamous for asking his most trusted players to log absurd amounts of playing time, trimmed his rotation to just seven players following the season-ending injury suffered by veteran swingman Bojan Bogdanovic.
One of the questions that may decide this series is simple: in the most literal of senses, who will be the last team standing? Take a look at the minutes played by some of the key starters on each side in the 53-minute marathon that was Game 5:
| Player | Game 5 minutes |
| Tyrese Maxey | 51:54 |
| Tobias Harris | 49:12 |
| Joel Embiid | 47:46 |
| Josh Hart | 53:00 |
| Jalen Brunson | 50:51 |
| OG Anunoby | 50:20 |
There are many reasons the Knicks hope to close out this series as soon as humanly possible. One of them is that they are running out of bodies -- and the Sixers are not in a dissimilar position.
There are four Villanova products in this series, and one of them -- Knicks All-Star point guard Jalen Brunson -- has cemented himself as a full-blown superstar. After struggling mightily in the first two games of the series, Brunson has erupted: in the last three contests, he has averaged 42 points and 9.7 assists per game, and he has done so on above-average efficiency. This is an all-time run from a player who has become one of the world's most dynamic offensive talents.
But the Knicks took a 2-0 series lead without Brunson playing anywhere near this level, and the biggest reason why is Hart, who tormented the Sixers with his three-point shooting early in the series. Hart knocked down four triples in each of the first three games of the series after not making that many triples in a single regular season game all year.
In the last two contests, though, Hart's points per game has dropped from 21 in the first three contests to 11, and while he is still impacting the game with his rebounding and defense, he is a combined 7-24 from the field in the last two games -- including a horrid 1-9 line from beyond the arc.
The Sixers' initial game-plan was clear: they would devote as much attention as possible to bottling up Brunson and try to force his supporting cast -- impressive in overall ability but lacking in offensive firepower -- to beat them. In the first two games of the series, New York's role players did exactly that.
The Sixers' defensive schemes are all still geared towards limiting Brunson, but perhaps a change in overall philosophy has taken place, because after losing the two games in which he posted brutal shooting lines, they have won two of the three in which he has dominated against every look they have thrown at him. That is in large part due to the fact that his teammates -- like Hart -- have not been able to fill in the blanks on offense when someone other than Brunson needs to give them a crucial bucket.
Whether it is Hart, Donte DiVincenzo, OG Anunoby or even Game 1 hero Miles "Deuce" McBride, the Knicks are going to need someone to help ease Brunson's scoring load at some point in order to close out this series.
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