Bobby Manning welcomes Adam Aaronson to the Garden Report from Philly Voice to talk about the 76ers beating the Celtics on Christmas Day at TD Garden. They also get into Philadelphia's nightmare start to the season, where Joel Embiid's career stands and whether they're a real threat to the 76ers in the East.
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00:00Can you say hard hats folks? Hard hats, munch pails, steel-toed boots.
00:08Anything short of a championship this year is a failure.
00:10Look at this boomer right here.
00:12You've just got so much talent here.
00:14Somebody's saying we need to apologize for Jalen.
00:16Can I pull the John? What are we apologizing for? What did we say? What did we do?
00:20Hey, Bobby Manning here.
00:29Welcome to a Thursday edition of the Garden Report.
00:33Adam Aronson here from Philly Voice.
00:35We're going to talk more about this Christmas game.
00:38We had a bit of an abbreviated show yesterday after the game.
00:41Still a ton, I think, to take away from this one for both teams here.
00:47This is the first time that the Celtics saw the Sixers and vice versa here, Adam.
00:51A ton has happened leading up to this game.
00:53Celtics, as expected, got off to one of the best starts in the league.
00:58Slipping up a little bit recently.
01:00As for the Sixers, probably the most surprisingly poor start to the season.
01:07They've turned it around a little bit here with some renewed health.
01:11Three or four games now into that big three playing together.
01:16I guess aside from Paul George, this is what you expected to see this year.
01:21This is what I certainly expected to see from this year.
01:23I had them second to Boston in the East coming into this year.
01:29When I posted my game story after the game, I said this is what the vision was.
01:34This is what this team was supposed to look like.
01:36Really, like you said, aside from Paul George, who's still in a little bit of a funk as a scorer
01:41and really has done everything better than I expected this year other than shooting and scoring
01:46where he's lagged quite a bit behind his career marks.
01:50We could talk about later if he'll catch up.
01:53Yet, the funniest part to me is we spent in Philly like two, three months
01:59talking about this Maxi, Oubre, George, Caleb Martin, Embiid lineup
02:05that was supposed to be their starting five.
02:07It was Maxi and Embiid and a bunch of wings,
02:10which is what everybody here has believed the formula would be.
02:14You add another high-level scorer in George.
02:16You have two guys you can guard across the positional spectrum
02:19who can knock down an open three.
02:21Everybody knows what Caleb Martin has done in matchups in Boston in the past.
02:26This was actually the first time that those guys all started a game together on Christmas Day.
02:31They had all been available the last few games,
02:34but K.J. Martin had been starting over Caleb Martin.
02:37K.J. Martin is now out for at least a few weeks with a stress reaction in his foot.
02:41Yeah, you're exactly right.
02:43This is what it was supposed to look like.
02:47The fact that we're finally getting a glimpse of what all of this was supposed to look like on Christmas
02:53when the season starts more than two months earlier than that
02:56is probably not a great sign for the Sixers.
02:59They can't go in a time machine and get Embiid's knee ready for opening night.
03:04They can't prevent Paul George from having two bone bruises.
03:07They can't prevent Maxey from having the hamstring issue he had in November.
03:12All they can do is make the best of the situation they're in, and that's what they did yesterday.
03:18Yeah, and you recounted a lot of it right there, everything that's gone wrong.
03:22You certainly had the Joel Embiid locker room incident and suspension as well.
03:27This came out without incident either with Embiid spilling into the crowd before the game
03:32and hurting his ankle, which I'm not normally on the floor much before the game.
03:38I usually poke my head out a few times.
03:40If I got to talk to someone, I will.
03:42But that's always what I imagine missing when I'm not out there is something like that.
03:46Of course, it never happens.
03:48But this game, I'm not out there, and that happened.
03:51And I think Jared Weiss was the only one who caught it.
03:53He turned his ankle on the security guard, fading away on a three.
03:59That's the kind of season it's been for the Sixers team.
04:02And even with this great win, you look at something like that,
04:05and he, I think, turned the other ankle later in the game.
04:08So even as you get the starting lineup together and you get this great win,
04:13you still have that sense here that this is the season from hell where everything goes wrong.
04:18Yeah, I mean, frankly, everything has.
04:23I would say one thing has gone right from the start,
04:27which has been Gershon Yabusele, who I'm sure we'll get to,
04:31which is just an incredible story.
04:33The other one was that Jared McCain looked like he was going to win rookie of the year
04:37and had this just ridiculous start to his rookie season.
04:40He had, I think, an eight or nine-game stretch of straight games with 20-plus points,
04:46all efficiently, all within the flow of the offense,
04:49as the focal point of an undermanned offense.
04:51And then on the 13th, they're playing Indiana.
04:55He takes a brutal fall and hits the back of his head on the floor.
04:59They check him for a concussion.
05:01Somehow he didn't have one.
05:02They bring him back into the game.
05:04And then the next morning we find out he didn't have a concussion,
05:07but somehow he tore his meniscus.
05:09There had been no understanding that anything was wrong with Jared's knee,
05:14and suddenly it's a repaired meniscus.
05:16He's going to be out for quite a while,
05:19still unclear if he's going to be back at all this year,
05:22and Bede has still only played, I want to say, nine games.
05:26Paul George has had two extended absences, both with the same injury,
05:30a left knee hyperextension, which was later revealed to be a bone bruise.
05:37Tyrese Maxey was having the season from hell as a shooter,
05:41and he's one of the better shooters there is in the league.
05:45And just when he was starting to get on track, he hurt his hamstring,
05:48comes back, everybody's in and out of the lineup constantly.
05:51Caleb Martin had been having the worst offensive season imaginable,
05:57had been playing through several injuries at once.
06:00They finally decided to sit him down, give him some time off,
06:04and Nick Nurse was adamant that when he got back they were confident
06:07that he'd be more like the guy that the Sixers thought they were getting.
06:10They gave him a four-year deal and hoped that he would be either
06:14a starter or one of their most critical rotation wings.
06:19And Caleb Martin, I think Derek Bodnar from All-City tweeted
06:24that Caleb Martin has upped his three-point percentage on the season
06:27by 9% over the last two games, three for four against San Antonio on Monday
06:33and obviously seven for nine yesterday in Boston.
06:36So again, this is sort of the essence of the Sixers,
06:40and it has been for as long as I have either covered them
06:43or followed them in any capacity.
06:46They do enough to make you think that whatever their expectations are,
06:51whatever their dreams are, are not going to be accomplished.
06:53And just when you're ready to write them off,
06:56they have a game like they did yesterday.
06:58And you're like, well, if it can look like this,
07:01if they can beat a team as good as the Celtics on Christmas
07:04in front of everybody, why can't they do that in April or May?
07:08And there are many reasons why that probably is not something that
07:12at least this iteration of the team is going to do
07:15against the current iteration of the Celtics.
07:17But again, it's just the constant state of the Sixers is just when you think
07:24you're out, they do something that makes you want to come back in on them.
07:29And then just when you're ready to get excited about them,
07:32something devastating happens.
07:34That is just how it always is with this team,
07:37and I've learned to just go with the flow of it, I guess.
07:40Yeah, and I do like how the team's constructed.
07:43You look at all the moves from over the offseason.
07:45That's why I had such high hopes for them.
07:48And I guess I underrated, and maybe many people who like them underrated,
07:52the fact that you're turning over so much of the roster here.
07:54And I still remember when they came to bus in the preseason,
07:57just how flustered Nick Naras sounded before the game about who was in,
08:02who was out, how they're going to use people.
08:04And that's pretty much how he sounded the whole way,
08:07because between the injuries and that turnover
08:10and just some of the general dysfunction there,
08:14it's been a bit of a mess.
08:16So I guess they're fortunate to now, after this win here
08:18and seven of their last 10, be a game out of that 10 spot,
08:22nine spot when you include the Bulls in that.
08:25So they're on the doorstep of the postseason picture now.
08:28They obviously have plenty of time here to climb up this
08:30if they can get close to full health
08:33and obviously McCain's not going to be part of that picture now here.
08:36But they have a lot of good pieces here.
08:40And I think when you look at Embiid,
08:43people are going to feel how they feel about him
08:45being the centerpiece of a championship team.
08:47I tend to think it's possible, if everything goes right around him,
08:51that he could be the centerpiece of something like that.
08:53Though, as his health continues to deteriorate here,
08:56I think that's less and less the case.
08:59He's got to be healthy come postseason time.
09:02And that just hasn't happened.
09:04Feels like going back years now.
09:06I like the wings that they have.
09:08But as Paul George passed a point in his career
09:10where you can rely on him to be, one, consistently healthy
09:14and two, consistently productive on the offensive end.
09:17So there's just so many questions.
09:19And you go all the way down the line here.
09:22I don't see them as a threat to the Celtics in a series.
09:26I do think, just because of Tyrese Maxey, and you saw it in this game,
09:31he's such a great matchup against them.
09:33And it's crazy because for a little while in his career, he wasn't.
09:36I thought he was such a target on defense.
09:38He fouled so much against the Celtics.
09:40I think they were the team that he fouled the second most times total
09:44against through the end of last year in his career.
09:47And his shooting was so unreliable that he didn't fare well
09:53in many of those matchups against the Celtics.
09:55But now, whether it's the Celtics changing their personnel a little bit here,
09:59a year older, less athletic top to bottom,
10:04he can beat a lot of these guys off the dribble.
10:06And that's all he did all game yesterday.
10:08So I guess if there's some semblance of health here,
10:12and Maxey continues to grow,
10:15and Nurse can scheme it up about as good as any coach,
10:19it's a series that I could see being extremely challenging,
10:23especially if it happens early.
10:24And obviously, you can't rule out this being a 1-8 or 2-7 kind of series
10:28the way it's gone for Philly.
10:30Yeah, I mean, if the Sixers are to be involved in the playoffs post-play-in,
10:38just based on where they are in the standings,
10:40I think by far the most likely scenario is that
10:43they're a team that wins a play-in game,
10:45and that puts them as a 7 or 8,
10:47which puts them against either Boston or Cleveland, right?
10:50I think that's a very likely scenario, and I agree with you.
10:55I would not consider the Sixers right now to be a genuine threat
10:59to the Celtics in a 7-game series.
11:01If they can stay healthy for several months
11:06and build the cohesion that a team needs to win at the highest levels,
11:12because like you said, entering the season,
11:15it was an issue of all these guys haven't played together,
11:18and that's something that sometimes you have to live with
11:20the first few weeks of a season.
11:22But when your best player who your team has built around on both ends of the floor
11:26doesn't play for the first few weeks of the season,
11:28it's everybody getting used to each other on the non-Embiid version of the team,
11:33and now everybody now has to get used to the Embiid version of the team,
11:36and then he goes out, and you have to go back,
11:38and they're going back and forth.
11:40And that's the biggest thing.
11:42It's not just about Embiid.
11:43It's really difficult for everyone else,
11:45because I'll just say, for example, someone like Kelly Oubre,
11:50when Embiid is on the floor, Oubre can cut off of him,
11:54do a ton of stuff off the ball that's really useful,
11:57crash the offensive glass where he's been great this year,
12:00and really focus on all of the little things, doing the dirty work.
12:04When Embiid is out, most of his minutes,
12:07he's the secondary creator and scoring option in a lineup,
12:11which is a role he's better at serving than anyone else on the team,
12:15really, other than Maxie and George, but it's not a perfect role for him.
12:18So anyways, with all the obvious caveats of if they stay healthy,
12:23if they can build cohesion with each other,
12:28I think they probably top out as a team that gives the Celtics
12:31a really, really difficult series with a bunch of close games that Boston wins.
12:37Now, obviously, if a great player on the Celtics turns his ankle
12:42or Caleb Martin and Kelly Oubre have the best shooting series of their lives,
12:47which would be tough for Caleb Martin to do from what we know
12:50from the conference finals a few years ago,
12:52but of course there are ways that games and series can swing
12:56in ways that aren't totally a reflection of how good the teams are.
13:00But anyways, I generally agree with your sentiment.
13:04I'm far from ready to call the Sixers a sort of credible threat to the Celtics.
13:08I do think if the Celtics did play, let's say the Celtics played the Sixers
13:13in either the 1-8 or the 2-7 in the first round,
13:16I do think that's something that would probably help the Celtics a lot
13:20to face three legitimate star-level players,
13:24one of which a former MVP, across the positional spectrum early on
13:29in just a way of not that the Celtics need any more battle testing,
13:35but it can never hurt those sorts of things.
13:38That was one reason I thought the Knicks were going to,
13:43if they could stay healthy, really sort of steamroll Indiana
13:47was because you emerge from a series as contested
13:52as that Knicks-Sixers series was.
13:54And I think you just come out for the better as long as you're healthy
13:57and you're not totally worn down.
14:00So yeah, I am far from ready to declare the Sixers as a threat
14:06to beat the Celtics, as a contender even against most teams,
14:10because again, we're having this conversation because Joel
14:14has played in three of their last four games,
14:17and that's been the pinnacle of their season so far
14:20from both on-court performance and his availability.
14:24Everybody says it, but it's really all you can say is
14:28you'll believe it when you see it with the Sixers
14:30because they just haven't shown it enough.
14:33And if I told someone in October that they were going to beat the Celtics
14:38on Christmas Day in front of everybody the way that they did
14:41and that it would improve their record to 11-17,
14:45that would be devastating to a lot of people.
14:47And all of this has been devastating,
14:49and a lot of people until yesterday were sort of checked out,
14:52and a lot of them still might be.
14:54And it's completely understandable,
14:56especially given how many disastrous things have happened
15:00with the Sixers team from the Kawhi shot
15:03to the blowing up that team that everybody was fond of
15:07and bringing in Al Horford and that being a disaster
15:10and then having to sour-dump Horford
15:12and then Horford goes back to Boston and is immediately awesome again
15:16and then wins a title and kills the Sixers every time.
15:21I said battle-tested before. Sixers fans are battle-tested.
15:25They have really been through the wringer over the last however many years.
15:30But yeah, again, probably too soon to even speculate
15:35about what they can do in a playoff series
15:37because, like I said, that lineup that everybody anticipated
15:41Nick Nurse using on a night-to-night basis,
15:44he just used for the first time on Christmas.
15:47And there's a stat floating around about how the Sixers are undefeated
15:51when Embiid, Maxey, and George all start and finish the game.
15:55It's like, that's true, but it's also three games,
15:58so it's not a significant sample size there.
16:02There are just too many moving parts with the Sixers
16:04to be able to project anything definitively
16:06in the months of April and May when we're still in December.
16:10But with the way that when they started out 3-14 or whatever it was,
16:17they're in a much better spot now where, like you said,
16:20I believe they're half a game out of the play-in
16:23and they're extremely lucky that the East has been as bad as it's been.
16:29And they've got a chance.
16:31They've got a chance because in almost every matchup they play
16:35are going to have the best player on the floor,
16:37and in some of them they'll have the second best
16:39and they'll have probably the fourth or fifth best too.
16:43And guys like Oubre and Caleb Martin and Yabusele
16:47are starting to figure out how they fit within the construct
16:50of this three-star team, and not to go on too long of a tangent,
16:54but I think the biggest issue with the Sixers early in the season
16:57was that it's a team of three stars and then a bunch of players
17:01who are fit to play around multiple stars at once,
17:05but then it just turned into Maxi on his own.
17:08And so everybody gets notched up the pecking order
17:11in a spot where they're probably underqualified for,
17:14and then it's just a bunch of guys who can't exactly hold their weight
17:17for the roles that they had to carry.
17:20And so now guys are starting to settle in.
17:23A lot of guys, Oubre and Yabusele, stand out specifically
17:27as guys who have talked about with us in the media
17:31about the value of being able to settle into a role
17:34and know what's expected of you.
17:37And I think that's pretty much the best version of the Sixers imaginable.
17:42And again, close to the best version of the Sixers imaginable,
17:47one by four against the Celtics without Drew Holiday
17:50and without a half of Porzingis.
17:53They did not blow this team out by 30, and I don't say that
17:57to try to throw cold water on the whole thing
17:59because Sixers fans are excited about this and they deserve to be,
18:02especially with how the season's gone.
18:05But again, this is my long-winded way of saying
18:09don't jump the gun on this team being ready to compete
18:13at the highest level because there have been many times
18:16under far better circumstances that people have jumped the gun on that
18:19and it's come back to bite them.
18:22Yeah, and in this game Porzingis goes down,
18:26doesn't play the second half, no Holiday.
18:28So if you're on the Celtics' side, those are caveats
18:31along with only losing by four that you can hope turn the other way
18:35when they play again.
18:37It's a tough matchup, especially if it does end up being
18:40a first-round matchup.
18:41It's more physically imposing.
18:43It's more burdensome in terms of games and the style of the series
18:48than you would want to play in a first-round series.
18:50But that could go the other way, like you mentioned too,
18:52in terms of battle-testing you.
18:54Everyone, I'm sure, remembers that 2022 Nets-Celtics series
18:58that the Nets entered as favorites and Kyrie and KD are on the other side
19:03and some people are arguing you want to maybe avoid that series
19:06and the Celtics just ended up sweeping through them
19:08and set the tone for a finals run that year.
19:11So I don't worry too much about first-round series
19:15that look scarier than they might appear because,
19:18and I felt this way to some degree about the Sixers so far,
19:21they are who they are.
19:23And I know they're getting healthier.
19:25I know things are starting to turn around a little bit here.
19:28But to some degree, this does feel just cursed or maybe ill-conceived
19:34or whatever it is that's preventing it from reaching its potential so far
19:38I think could continue to lead to some inconsistency
19:41throughout the season.
19:42But, you know, we got to see them all together
19:44before we start to figure out what it's going to be.
19:46And it was a pretty good first impression here.
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21:43Just a couple more Philly questions here.
21:45Obviously, in this win and a good night for them.
21:48Paul George just doesn't look like Paul George still.
21:52I don't know if it's the aftereffect of a couple injuries,
21:55knee bruises he suffered earlier this year.
21:58He felt pretty uninvolved overall in this game.
22:01I did see he and Joelle get into the two-man game a couple times.
22:04But this was a pretty lackluster performance for George here.
22:08In a season full of them, I think just 41% from the field,
22:1133% from three.
22:13The last seven, eight seasons before this,
22:15he's been a 20-point-per-game guy, and I think he's down to around 16.
22:19And that's concerning.
22:21I mean, this is just year one of a five-year deal here.
22:24Not great.
22:26Yeah, not great indeed.
22:29I think to some, he has missed quite a few open shots.
22:32I don't have the numbers in front of me of his numbers on wide-open looks,
22:35but it's staggeringly low, which would indicate those are going to go up,
22:40and that'll help out a little bit.
22:42The biggest thing, and I wish I had the exact numbers in front of me,
22:45but I can certainly say for watching every game
22:48and usually re-watching every game,
22:51he is very rarely shooting at the rim.
22:56He's finished at a good clip when he is at the rim,
22:59but so rarely is he getting downhill, like creating an advantage,
23:03beating a guy off the dribble and going all the way.
23:06And he's one of the better shooters that has ever played the game,
23:11particularly in the last 10, 15 years, and guys of tall wings of that ilk.
23:17He's an incredible shooter, and he should seek out his own shots,
23:21both in spot-up opportunities and off the dribble pull-ups,
23:24but they also need him to get downhill a little bit more.
23:29But even with that being said, he just hasn't been good enough as a scorer,
23:33and it's sort of outweighing the fact that he really is,
23:38as a passer, has been far better than I expected.
23:42As a rebounder, has been great.
23:45Defensive playmaker, has known where to be, really smart,
23:48gets his hands on basketballs quite a bit, gets a ton of deflections.
23:53But it all is sort of dragged down by the elephant in the room
23:57that I think I just saw a comment about,
24:01it seemed like he disappeared from the game for quite a while,
24:04and that's something that a lot of Clippers fans
24:07sort of complained about with him in recent years, I had noticed,
24:11and I get it.
24:13There are a lot of times where you sort of forget that he's there
24:17for a whole quarter, for most of a quarter,
24:20and part of the sort of appeal of Paul George
24:23is that he can play off the ball, and when you have Embiid and Maxey
24:26having this guy who can hit all sorts of shots off the catch is great,
24:29and can still guard, can still rebound.
24:32That's, of course, wonderful, but there were stretches
24:35where the Sixers went with George as their sort of lone star
24:38in certain second-unit lineups,
24:41and he just could not get going as a scorer.
24:44They're going to need more from him offensively
24:47to be the team that they want to be.
24:50They just do, and I think the biggest thing
24:53that sort of stands out as an opportunity
24:56is two-man actions with George and Joel.
24:59Maxey and Embiid have developed
25:02just a ridiculous two-man game.
25:05They have counters to counters.
25:08They can do it on all areas of the four.
25:11They can do it for Maxey. They can do it for Embiid.
25:14They can do it at the three-point line. They can do it inside.
25:17They can do it in between. They can do everything.
25:20When their lead went down to, I think, six with two minutes left
25:23after those Maxey turnovers,
25:26a nurse called his second straight timeout.
25:29He came out of the timeout, and he just went to a simple
25:32Maxey-Embiid two-man game.
25:35Maxey hit him with a pocket pass. Joel rolled hard to the rim,
25:38drew a foul. That was actually the play where he twisted that other ankle,
25:41but I think he turned out to be okay.
25:44He hit two free throws, and it really helped stabilize things.
25:47That's their bread and butter. That's the stuff that they need to go to
25:50in the most critical situations.
25:53I think for George, him being able to develop
25:56a similar sort of dynamic with Joel
25:59would be a really significant boost
26:02for him in this offense.
26:05Embiid, even when he's not his best self, even in the playoffs
26:08where it's well-documented that he hasn't always been his best,
26:11even against guys like Horford
26:14who have always famously defended him so well,
26:17at the very least, when he has the ball,
26:20five pairs of eyes are going to be on him
26:23from the opposing defense. When he puts the ball on the four,
26:26a double is almost certainly coming,
26:29no matter who he's sharing the four with.
26:32Just having opportunities to be on the four with Embiid
26:35would be a pretty significant crutch for George
26:38as he tries to work his way out of this slump
26:41and find a more consistent offensive groove.
26:44He's 34. He's going to be 35 in May.
26:47If the Sixers were to make a deep playoff run, he'll be 35 years old
26:50by the time that's going on.
26:53He's had a ton of injuries, including two bone bruises
26:56in the same knee this year already, within a month of each other.
26:59He's not the same athlete that he once was.
27:02I think the explosion off the dribble being diminished
27:05is probably the most significant manifestation of that
27:08because he just can't get downhill
27:11and draw a foul at the rim necessarily
27:14as easily as he once could
27:17during his days with the Clippers or Oklahoma City
27:20or, of course, Indiana.
27:23That's something to look out for with George.
27:26Also, some of these shooting numbers are just too low
27:29to make any sense and are clearly,
27:32to some degree, he's the victim of variance here.
27:35I would expect the shooting numbers to go up
27:38a decent bit in the weeks, months to come,
27:41but there are some things approach-wise,
27:44particularly him going downhill
27:47or the lack thereof, that have concerned me.
27:50Again, I think more time with Embiid
27:53will do him a lot of good, but then it goes back to the question
27:56of when is Embiid going to play? How often is Embiid going to play?
27:59Because we don't know. We never know on a game-to-game basis.
28:02You just don't know, and that's part of
28:05the question going in was how is this team
28:08of a bunch of new players where the Sixers were saying from the outset
28:11they're going to be super aggressive and resting Embiid
28:14and give them periodic time off. How is that team
28:17going to develop enough chemistry with each other on the floor
28:20that in April, May, or theoretically June
28:23they're able to win against teams like Boston,
28:26teams like Cleveland, Orlando, New York,
28:29your pick of the best teams in the East.
28:32That's sort of my general outlook on Paul right now.
28:35Again, I think everything other than scoring
28:38has been terrific from him, which is really encouraging
28:41because if he does have one of these
28:44three-week, four-week shooting heaters, he's going to look like
28:47one of the better wings in the league again.
28:50Is that coming, and if that comes, will it
28:53happen in conjunction with him keeping up all of the
28:56rebounding, passing, defensive stuff?
28:59Yeah, and you do want him to be able to carry this thing if Embiid has to miss time
29:02because that feels inevitable. That's a big reason he's here.
29:05You relied on guys like Simmons and Harden to do
29:08in past situations, and that's his job
29:11now in some way, obviously sharing it with Maxey there.
29:14The last one I got on Philly for you is
29:18which isn't a massive story here in Boston. I remember
29:21talking to him in the preseason game, and it was cool. He got back
29:24in the league at that point, and the Olympic run was sensational.
29:27That gets you back after all those years you missed
29:30being there at Real Madrid once Boston cut him.
29:33Pretty surprising he got back.
29:36That's a good story in itself, but
29:39playing every night, don't know if you expected that
29:42in the comeback, and playing well
29:45I think makes this a whole new dynamic here,
29:48especially between these two teams.
29:51Last night, I thought he did hurt the Celtics a couple of times.
29:54Early in the fourth quarter, it's a pretty deep bench unit
29:57out there, and he's logging minutes in a small ball look
30:00and knocks down a couple of threes in this game
30:03on four tries. Overall, just active.
30:06That's what you expected as the Celtics
30:09when you drafted him, was a guy who could play a couple of positions,
30:12knock down threes, move his feet defensively
30:15despite being a massive body.
30:18It's amazing what he's doing right now for this team,
30:21and I don't know if he'll sustain,
30:24but as long as it does, if these teams
30:27do end up meeting down the line, I do think this story has the potential
30:30to grow here because the Celtics
30:33cut him so long ago at this point, and the team's changed so much,
30:36and they've won the championship, that it's hard to be like,
30:39he's killing in Philly, but he's killing in Philly.
30:42He really is.
30:45It is truly a remarkable story,
30:48and you can just tell when you talk to him, even still now,
30:51months into the season, how much all of this means to him
30:54and how surreal he is.
30:57He didn't want to jinx it yesterday. I was like, man, did you imagine
31:00me playing this ball? He's like, we're only 30 games in.
31:03Yeah, exactly.
31:06He spent five years overseas trying to work his way back,
31:09and headed into the Olympics,
31:12had no perception that
31:15an NBA return this year was
31:18even slightly on the table.
31:21It really wasn't until just the extent
31:24to which he was brilliant in those
31:27Olympic games for Team France.
31:30It's ironic. I actually talked to him
31:33about, in November, he made his NBA debut
31:36in Philly, and he had his
31:39first NBA basket in Philly. I said, do you remember your first basket?
31:42Do you remember where it was? He said, yeah, it was in Philly. I had a pick-and-pop
31:45three from Shane Larkin, and I was like, alright, so you remember.
31:48I thought that was cool.
31:51Yabusele has been terrific.
31:54I wrote a story on Monday night that went up Tuesday morning
31:57after the Sixers played the Spurs.
32:00Wemby got ejected at the end of the first half from that game.
32:03Nick Nurse just said, we are mirroring
32:06Yabu's minutes with Wemby. He's going to be the guy
32:09on Wemby the rest of the game. He knows him.
32:12Yabu was so good
32:15on both ends. He hit these
32:18crazy high-arcing threes over Wemby,
32:21drove, attack a closeout
32:24with a pump fake, drive to the basket, score on him at the rim,
32:27guard him about as well as you could.
32:30Tyrese Maxey
32:33had a really excellent quote
32:36on it after that game.
32:39I'm going to just pull it up here and read it for you
32:42because I just think it speaks to everything I would say.
32:45Tyrese said, Yabu's been great. He's done so many different
32:48things, played the five, played the four, started, come off
32:51the bench. He's done everything that the coaches have asked him to do.
32:54All you can do is appreciate someone like that, man.
32:57Shooting threes, rebounding, posting up. Sometimes
33:00we're going to throw him the ball in the post because he's a matchup problem down there.
33:03He knows how to score. His defense was amazing tonight.
33:06Really, he's just thrived
33:09in every conceivable way, multiple
33:12positions. There was almost no thought
33:15that Yabu Selle would play any
33:18center minutes for this team, let alone even whether he's going to get in the
33:21rotation at the four. Whether or not he could
33:24play the five at all, nobody had any idea
33:27until literally their first preseason game when he
33:30checked in for Andre Drummond in the first quarter. It was like,
33:33wow, okay, they're trying Yabu Selle at center.
33:36You could tell in training camp in the Bahamas that
33:39ironically, the people that
33:42guys talked about the most and Nick Nurse talked about the most were
33:45McCain and Yabu Selle as far as guys who impressed them.
33:48That sort of ended up being telling.
33:51He's done everything. The most critical thing
33:54probably is the four spacing. The three-point volume
33:57is crazy high given
34:00expectations. He's shooting, I think,
34:03three and a half and four a game,
34:06not playing 30 minutes every night, though he
34:09counts some nights. Shooting, I think,
34:12close to 39 percent. He was well above 40
34:15for most of the season and then he had a little lull before
34:18these last two games where he's been excellent.
34:21He's great finishing around the rim. Everybody knows
34:24he's a strongly built guy and he knows
34:27how to leverage that to finish at the rim. He knows how
34:30to beat a guy off the dribble when he pump fakes and the guy tries
34:33to close out. Really good
34:36passer for a big.
34:39Just does everything that they need. Plays
34:42butt off every second that he's in on both ends of the
34:45floor. There was a clip from that Spurs game where
34:48he hit a three and then just immediately took
34:51off sprinting in the other direction to pick up Wemby
34:54and get in Wemby's grill to try to prevent
34:57him from getting a touch. What he's done
35:00has really been astounding. Ironically,
35:03I tweeted this during the game last night. To me, he's the best
35:06backup center that the Sixers have had since Al Horford,
35:09which is sort of funny.
35:12To the Celtics fans listening, it's very funny. If there are any Sixers fans
35:15listening, they think that's probably more of a cursed sort of
35:18fact. I think that they should
35:21view him, if they can keep him around long term, and it could get
35:24tricky with salary cap stuff depending on how much interest
35:27there is in him from other teams next summer.
35:30To me, this is the ideal backup center for them
35:33and it's someone who can also play at the floor alongside
35:36Joel if they need him to.
35:39It's a wonderful story. It's also
35:42heartwarming just in the sense that
35:45it's very clear how much all this means to him.
35:48The crowd in Philly absolutely loves him
35:51and it's just the classic guy that a Philly crowd would love because
35:54he just plays so hard constantly
35:57and they really gravitate towards that. He
36:00feeds off of that in a way that I think is really special
36:03to watch. He's a great guy.
36:06Everybody who's been around him with the team and otherwise has
36:09really raved about him, including
36:12Nick Batum who was on that team with
36:15Yabusele and Wembenyama
36:18who gave him a glowing review of Philly before he signed.
36:21It's really
36:24I could go on for many more
36:27minutes about how brilliant of a story it is and how
36:30well he's played. He's crushed everybody's expectations
36:33in every facet of his game, which is
36:36really remarkable. He is
36:39just a full-blown quality rotation NBA player
36:42and to seemingly have no NBA
36:45prospects
36:48seven months ago and now
36:51he's one of the most critical players in the rotation
36:54for a team that beat the defending champion Celtics on Christmas
36:57Day. It's a pretty cool story before you even get
37:00into the fact that he played for the Celtics.
37:03I talked to him about
37:06the famous confetti game.
37:09Sixers fans remember even more than Celtics
37:12fans at this point. He was on the bench for that.
37:15It's been a very interesting full-circle moment
37:18for him that is incredibly
37:21deserved. He's just a real
37:24player. It's not just a good story. It's a really
37:27good player who could help any team at two different
37:30positions. Any team would be thrilled to
37:33have him. He's going to be an unrestricted free agent
37:36this summer. There are going to be teams calling.
37:39It's not going to be a thing where he waits until late
37:42July for one team to offer him a minimum.
37:45By the way, he is paying a significant buyout to
37:48Real Madrid this year just to enable himself
37:51to get to Philly. He's essentially taking a pay cut
37:54to play for the Sixers because a bunch of the
37:57$2.087 million veteran minimum
38:00that he's on, he's paying to Real Madrid
38:03because it's a guy who
38:06really wanted to bet on himself that if he got back to the NBA
38:09he could prove that he's a full-blown NBA player and he really has.
38:12It's a wonderful story. It's a great find by
38:15the Sixers. Of course, everybody
38:18saw what he did in the Olympics, but it seems like the Sixers were
38:21by far the most interested team afterwards.
38:24It's gone swimmingly for them
38:27in a perfect world where
38:30NB stays healthy and George figures out how to
38:33score efficiently and consistently again. Maxi
38:36finds his groove. He keeps the groove that he's found the last
38:39handful of games. That's a
38:42tremendous player to be able to plug in at the five, plug in at the four
38:45and high leverage situations
38:48if you need on either end of the four and he's
38:51fearless. It's really
38:54one of, to me, the better stories in the league
38:57this year, even during what's pretty much
39:00been a completely disastrous season for the Sixers otherwise.
39:03Matchup in Philadelphia
39:06coming up pretty quick, just about a month away, February 2nd
39:09between these two teams. They still have three
39:12games left to play this year.
39:15You want to go see those? You want to go see any game?
39:18Go check out the Game Time app. A couple of home games this
39:21weekend in Boston against the Pacers in these finals
39:24rematch. Go
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39:30have these flash and zone deals going on. You get panoramic
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40:00purchase. Terms apply. Let's
40:03talk a little Celtics. I'm down on them
40:07right now. Not in a big way because
40:10I do think many of their issues
40:13right now and it's recent. We're talking
40:16about the last 5-10 games here where they've started to slow
40:19down a little bit. I think health is a
40:22problem right now for them and it's not that guys are
40:25missing. It's that they have all these bumps and bruises and guys
40:28are moving in and out of the lineup and especially poor Zingas
40:31who went down for a third time in 11 games since
40:34he's been back from off-season surgery.
40:37His sparse availability
40:40and you gotta manage him and all that too I think
40:43has been a pressure point on them too.
40:46And holidays banged up. I don't know how far back that
40:49goes but it's impacted his play. Sam Houser
40:52has this reoccurring back thing going on
40:55so he hasn't been the same guy this year and all of a sudden this team
40:58that shot 38% last year which pretty much
41:01led the league and certainly from a volume standpoint
41:04they were getting more points from threes than anyone
41:07is down to 16th. They're just like 36.5%
41:10from three this year. They had it in this game
41:13and still weren't good enough defensively to be able to close
41:16it out because Philly pretty much matched them with 17
41:19threes of their own. Some weird games
41:22I think there's some matchups that hurt them more
41:25than others and that does become interesting come playoff time because
41:28not to do the whole they had the easiest run everything
41:31but they didn't see certain teams that I think could have put
41:34more pressure on them than the teams that they did
41:37were able to there. So I think my general
41:40feeling on them right now and I want to get your thoughts Adam is
41:43they're not unstoppable and
41:46they felt inevitable at the start of this year as the threes were
41:49pouring down and Tatum got off to this crazy start
41:52and Pritchard and some other guys were rolling. White looked like an
41:55early on to but when
41:58the three-pointer slows down for them
42:01they become a little more human and
42:04have to rely on some other things that I think that they can get to
42:07whether it's Tatum getting downhill or defensive
42:10dominance or offensive rebounding
42:13you saw a little bit of that in this game to here to be able
42:16to try to pull it out late but
42:19I don't love the way they're playing right now and it does
42:22mildly concern me. Yeah.
42:25So I I largely agree. I obviously
42:28do not you know follow all things Celtics
42:31and as intensive a way as you they're probably the team that I watch
42:34more than any non Sixers team in the NBA for what it's
42:37worth. What I will say is that
42:40last season like you use the word inevitable
42:43when I watch the Celtics there was just no matter who they were playing
42:46there was just a sense of like the Celtics are so much
42:49better than the team they were playing against right now
42:52and it is like almost unfathomable to me that they could lose
42:55the game and I don't feel that way
42:58nearly as much watching them now. I still think they're
43:01awesome. If I had to pick right now, which team
43:04wins the title? I would still pick the Celtics even though I
43:07I mean everybody's high on the Oklahoma City Thunder. That's
43:10not like a outlandish take for me, but
43:13particularly if they get Chet Holmgren back. I think that's probably the
43:16team I would have number two, but
43:19this is still a brilliantly constructed team
43:22and I think
43:25there's reason to hope that guys like Jalen
43:28and Drew and Porzingis will
43:31their three point percentages will go up and
43:34Hauser is such an awesome
43:37weapon to have off your bench and if he can whatever this
43:40back stuff is, which does seem like it's been pretty weird and
43:43like it's been going on for a little while now.
43:46If he can get back to the Hauser that he's
43:49known to be, just having
43:52the floor of a guy who's going to shoot so many threes
43:55and make a considerable percentage of them
43:58is just such an instant lift,
44:01but I do agree some of the defensive stuff has been
44:04weird. I think I saw you post
44:07about this that breakdown they had on that
44:10play. Unbelievable.
44:13The Sixers have run that a few times recently and never
44:16has the entire paint just been wide
44:19open for Tyrese. I could not believe it and then he almost
44:22fumbled the ball and I think almost hurt his knee on that play too,
44:25but he got it to go, but that's the sort
44:28of breakdown that I'm just not used to seeing from the Celtics
44:31and you could speak better to me
44:34whether or not that's sort of emblematic of a larger theme going on
44:37with them, but yeah, you
44:40used the word inevitable describing last year's team
44:43and I would have also used that word and it doesn't feel that way right now,
44:46but it's December
44:49and they're still 22-8,
44:52so they're doing all right, obviously.
44:55The amount of talent is incredible.
44:58I was very
45:01appreciative that you teamed up with me on that
45:04game preview for Philly Voice yesterday
45:07and the first guy I wanted to ask you about was Pritchard because I've just been
45:10so fascinated by how
45:13massive of a weapon he's become
45:16and I know he's, I think the last three games
45:19have been pretty rough for him shooting-wise and I think 0-8
45:22from three yesterday against the Sixers.
45:25That was a weird one, yeah.
45:28Another guy that there's just such a
45:31you know, of course every guy is liable to a game
45:34where they go 0-4, but generally speaking
45:37such a high four when you're shooting so many threes
45:40and you're such a good shooter and
45:43I know there's this whole widespread thing about
45:46people shooting too many threes. The Celtics,
45:49if there's any team that should be shooting a billion threes a game,
45:52it's a team that has a billion good three-point
45:55shooters. That is sort of nonsensical to me.
45:58But, like you said,
46:01you always want to be able to win in multiple ways. You don't want to be
46:04as good of a shooting team as they are. You don't want to be
46:07entirely reliant on shots going down and then not
46:10be able to pivot if they're not and you're in trouble and you need
46:13to go to something else, but
46:16clearly they're in good hands, both in terms of
46:19I mean, Missoula and his staff do a wonderful job
46:22and the front office is of course brilliant
46:25and I know for all sorts of reasons between prior
46:28trades and second apron stuff,
46:31they're extremely limited in what they can do
46:34in terms of adding to this, but even look at
46:37something small last year like adding Xavier Tillman
46:40was just like such a classic Celtics
46:43addition to me. It's
46:46very funny to me how the Sixers have been searching for
46:49a backup center for what feels like 25
46:52years and Celtics just have four of them
46:55right now and I enjoy like
46:58you'll either turn on a game or click on a Celtics box
47:01score. It's like, oh, tonight it's Keita. Oh, tonight it's Cornette.
47:04You never know who it's going to be. I enjoy that.
47:07I just struggle to be
47:10too concerned, like I suppose some
47:13concern relative to what I expected from them, but
47:16still 22-8
47:20still one of the best offenses in the league, I believe,
47:23and one of the best defenses in the league.
47:26It's still an awesome team. They have more than
47:29enough time to figure it out and I'm sure
47:32during the games it drives Missoula nuts,
47:35but knowing him, I'm sure he also sort of enjoys
47:38the fact that there's stuff that he can hammer
47:41home over the next few months and they don't feel like they can
47:44coast and it doesn't seem like a group that really feels that way anyways.
47:47It's a bunch of pretty motivated guys and that's why they all
47:50play so well for Missoula.
47:53I would echo the concerns that you
47:56just spoke to and I think
47:59they're concerns, but in the grand scheme of things
48:02they're 29 teams
48:05probably with far more significant ones.
48:08I think there's only a small
48:11number of teams that could beat them four times. I do put
48:14the Thunder in that category.
48:17Several of them are probably out West and it would be interesting to watch them
48:20against more West teams as those come about. Memphis
48:23played them great. I think Milwaukee can still play them
48:26athletically through Giannis in a challenging
48:29way. And Philadelphia, I have
48:32some positives from this game too. I like how they
48:35can generate threes over Embiid's drop. I like how they
48:38go out Embiid in space with Jalen and make him work
48:41and Jalen after an awful start to this game
48:44turned it around by attacking mismatches.
48:47So they're pretty versatile offensively in the way that they can create threes
48:50and you saw it in this game. The paint's not always super
48:53accessible against Philadelphia and Embiid and
48:56when you can rain down jump shots over that, that's important
48:59and they did that in this game.
49:02I'll just say that that is the true stretch fives
49:05for Embiid's experience.
49:09Those have been the guys who have
49:12been the most difficult for him to handle because
49:15he is just naturally inclined to want to protect the rim because
49:18he is so unbelievably good around the rim.
49:21I'm just seeing Horford shot five of ten from three in this game.
49:24I can think all the way back
49:27to 2018 and how Horford picking and popping
49:30him to death with Terry Rozier and Aaron Baines hitting
49:33corner threes. That was a thing then
49:36and six, seven years later it's still a thing.
49:39He's better than people realize a lot of time
49:42in space defending Embiid that is
49:45but Porzingis and Horford are such unique
49:48floor spacing threats like particularly Porzingis
49:51and how far he shoots it from
49:54and when I was not at TD Garden yesterday
49:57so I was watching on TV and when the second
50:00half started and I noticed Cornett was in there
50:03over Porzingis. Cornett is a very good
50:06backup center and frankly the Sixers would have killed
50:09to have Luke Cornett the last few years but
50:12just the fact that it's someone who has to hang
50:15around the rim means that Joel can also hang around the rim
50:18and that's where he's his most comfortable.
50:21As far as the Sixers defense
50:24my absolute number one concern
50:27in a seven game series against the Celtics
50:30is how they manufacture sort of opportunities
50:33for Embiid to hang around the rim and I don't know if that means going to a bunch
50:36of zone or just pre-switching
50:39as much as you can or even like
50:42trying to throw him on Jalen occasionally just to see what
50:45it looks like which like sort of sounds crazy
50:48and probably is a little bit crazy but Nick Nurse has
50:51done plenty of crazy things as a guy who threw a box
50:54in one at Steph Curry in the finals.
50:57I think the spatial
51:00issue for Joel defensively is probably the most significant
51:03thing that the Sixers would run into
51:06as a defense against the Celtics in a series just because
51:09Horford and Porzingis are so
51:12like these are not just bigs who can shoot. These are like
51:15awesome shooters who happen to be bigs
51:18particularly Porzingis and he's doing
51:21it from 30 feet out most of the time.
51:24Guys who can space that far
51:27it's just an archetype that has given him trouble forever
51:30and whenever the Sixers have played those stretch fives
51:33they often will invert the 4-5
51:36matchup so whoever their four is will guard the stretch big
51:39and Embiid will guard like the power forward who's not
51:42as good of a shooter but no such player
51:45exists on the Celtics. Like it's not like
51:48when they used to play the Pacers and they put Ben Simmons on Miles Turner
51:51so Embiid could roam off of Thaddeus Young.
51:54There's no such matchup with Boston.
51:57That's really the biggest thing unless they want to try it
52:00with Drew which I suppose you could
52:03but I don't know how well it's going to work.
52:06Grizzlies did it successfully. I don't know how many teams could. Philly maybe
52:09didn't play in this game but
52:12it's challenging because you know he has the pedigree of a great
52:15shooter even if it hasn't gone that way this year but that is going to be
52:18one of the big swing factors in whether they get it done again this year
52:21or not is whether he can turn around whether
52:24Porzingis is consistently available and Horford
52:27lets you get by as he did for most of the last postseason
52:30if he's still playing at the level that he has for the last
52:33handful of years here. So that's time he's not concerned
52:36and then Brown and Tatum are just both so good at this point
52:39that they've been able to win in a bunch of different lineups
52:42with those guys so I think that puts you
52:45It doesn't feel like there's too many teams that can beat this group four times
52:48but they have to get right and these next seven
52:51games will tell us a lot about them with the Pacers coming up twice
52:54a team that probably played them about as tough as anyone last year
52:57Toronto who took them to overtime
53:00earlier this season as bad as they've been and then this
53:03monster road trip against Minnesota, Houston back to back
53:06Oklahoma City and then Denver
53:09which is probably the hardest road trip I've ever seen. Yeah that is
53:12sort of unbelievable to me actually that that's that is
53:15a ridiculous stretch. The Sixers have
53:18like Utah, Portland, Sacramento coming up so
53:21and then they return to the East Coast and go to
53:24Brooklyn. So they're in the opposite boat right now. But yeah, I'm excited
53:27because the Celtics have been playing the Wizards and Pistons
53:30and those kind of teams to this point so far Nets
53:33a couple times so it's about time they get some rough
53:36tests here and they need it right now clearly because there's a chance
53:39that all this stuff could just be boredom or malaise coming
53:42off the summer championship all that it probably is
53:45hard to reset and go back to playing regular season
53:48games after winning a title and doing everything that they did
53:51over the summer Olympics included so
53:54this stretch clearly a wake up call for them
53:57and we'll see how they handle the next seven games here but the Pacers are
54:00coming up tomorrow night. We'll have coverage of that here on
54:03the garden report looking forward to seeing you
54:06in Philly in about a month Adam and you can check out all his
54:09work and coverage over at Philly Voice
54:12where he's been working for a little while now. Appreciate you Adam
54:15we did a piece together over there as well you can check out
54:18and we'll talk to you again in February man
54:21Yes sir, thanks so much