Sixers' second-half collapse ends in painful defeat vs. Celtics

The Sixers raced out to a 26-point lead against the rival Celtics in their Sunday night showdown, but a monster Jayson Tatum fourth quarter and a poor Philly finish allowed Boston to sneak away with a 118-110 victory. Tyrese Maxey led all Sixers scorers with 34 points in the loss.

Here’s what I saw.

The Good

— The current one-man run Tyrese Maxey is on almost defies belief. You need to take a look at some of the lineups he’s out there with while managing to carve teams up. The freaking starting lineup on Sunday was Maxey, Council IV, Oubre, Edwards, and Yabusele. You should be able to mostly ignore around 2.5 guys from that group. It just does not matter right now.

If you’ve played ball at any level with even a medium amount of success, you know what it feels like when you get on a roll as a shooter. You have a feeling of certainty every time the ball leaves your hands — it almost glides out of your hand and into the basket, and you can start running the other way before the shot is even halfway home. That has been Maxey for at least a couple of weeks now, and teams don’t appear to have caught on. It’s one thing for Maxey to get rolling on tough shots where you can just credit him for being great, but the Celtics somehow managed to hand him some open shots with poor, sagging defense in the first half.

That doesn’t take anything away from Maxey, and in fact, it’s a welcome return to the form we expect after he spent the beginning of the season clanging open looks. One bad closeout from an opponent right now turns into an offensive explosion. You cannot afford to have bad reps that give him a clean look at the basket. He is turning that into 25 points before you can blink.

The craft we’re seeing from Maxey right now is staggering after watching a lot of headless chicken offense from him earlier this season. Maybe the most important thing I’ve seen lately is how he’s using pace-changing to make his speed more dangerous. He faced tough Celtics fronts throughout Sunday night’s games, and did an excellent job of weaponizing stop-and-go moves to prevent them from walling the paint off. The midrange shot wasn’t much of a factor on Sunday, but it has been prevalent enough that when he decelerates around the free-throw line teams have to try to get close for a contest. He only needs a little bit of uncertainty to then explode past his defender and get to the rim.

Derrick White has been a two-way force for Boston for most of the last two years, and Maxey had him spinning. The Celtics tried an early “break glass in case of emergency” shift for Jaden Springer, whose lone useful trait is on-ball defense, and Maxey used a screen to separate from him and hit a pull-up three on the very first possession. He had a beautiful right-to-left crossover into a lefty finish at the basket, underscoring the gains he has made attacking to his left in recent weeks.

Maybe this is just a brief flash of brilliance and preexisting concerns about his ability to be a No. 1 option are still valid. But we shouldn’t rule out that this represents “the leap” just because it took until late January of this season to take place. For now, enjoy the ride, and let’s see where it goes.

— The Sixers have had every excuse to just lay down and die. We’re not just talking about extended absences for Joel Embiid and Paul George, but a string of missed games for vets like Caleb Martin, KJ Martin, and Andre Drummond. The Sixers had their 29th different starting lineup of the season in their 48th game of the year on Sunday. That is an absurd problem to have to deal with, and they just keep battling.

Those who remain are doing their best to not only meet the moment but rewrite expectations for what they bring to the table. And I’m not sure anybody stood out in a better way than Ricky Council IV.

Council has been an explosive, above-the-rim player for all of his basketball life, but questionable decision-making on both ends has been the biggest hurdle for his success. This game featured the best floor reads of any game he has played in a Sixers uniform, with Council constantly finding the open man and moving the ball into space. He stepped out of deep threes to find a more open shot for Oubre; hit baseline cutters after slashing to the paint around his man; made smart reads as a transition player; and Council did just enough attacking of his own to keep the defense honest. He sent Derrick White the wrong way on one transition possession, and that was all she wrote, with Council soaring for a huge tomahawk slam after beating White.

These are not plays Council has made with any level of consistency:

But there were probably 3-4 of those passes against Boston. That is all that is separating him from being a regular rotation player and a guy with talent who just can’t figure it out. If he only scores 6-10 points per game but fills up the box score in other ways, he will carve out a long career in this league. Credit to him for a tremendous response to last week’s

— What more is there to say about Guerschon Yabusele at this point? He is just about the surest way to juice up Philadelphia’s offense every time he’s on the floor. The Dancing Bear moves, cuts, passes, connects, shoots, and throws it the hell down on people with regularity. He is desired by other teams leading up to the trade deadline for good reason: Yabusele is a hooper.

I look forward to the 2-3 times a week where you look at a guy with his build and think to yourself that there’s no way he’s about to get up and yam on somebody. And yet, a few seconds later, he’s taking off from the runway and punching it, drawing bloodcurdling screams from Sixers nation in the seats.

You could make a coherent case that, after leaving the NBA for a half-decade, his return to the league is worthy of Most Improved Player consideration. A guy who could not shoot during his previous stint is bombing away this year, opening the floor up for every would-be driver on Philadelphia’s roster. When he’s not doing that, he’s serving as a capable pick-and-roll partner for Maxey.

The Bad

— For all the good the Sixers did on offense in this game, they were an absolute trainwreck on defense the entire second half. They played well enough to keep their lead at 15-22 or so for most of the third quarter, with Tyrese Maxey getting his end-of-third rest with the Sixers nursing a 19-point lead. It was down to 14 by the end of the quarter, and Boston just kept chipping away in the opening moments of the fourth.

There were certainly attempts to show Boston different looks and mix it up, and basically all of them ended in disaster. Man defense? Cooked. Zone defense? Shooting gallery. Nurse even tried to dust off his box-and-one defense for a stint, and that might have been the worst of the bunch, with Boston generating open look after open look at the rim and three-point line.

Although I was not enamored with the structural choices, there was an element of “What the hell are they supposed to do?” because of some personnel mismatches. Philly still had enough wing size on the floor to sort of bother Tatum and Brown, but when you have to account for Holiday and White as drivers and Porzingis as a roving threat, you end up in a ton of stressful situations. Do you commit a second defender to stop Porzingis from getting cheapies, risking the kick out for an open three? Do you even have the capability to set up “favorable matchups” when you have to play Lowry and Jackson as important rotation players?

— The bigger sin that was committed by the Sixers, if you’re asking me, was their complete failure to keep up the pace of play as this game wore on. I understand it’s harder to play fast when the other team is scoring on every possession, but they were walking the ball up the floor from about the midway point of the third quarter onward. In theory, you want a more talented team having the minimal amount of possessions they can get if you’ve already got a big lead. But the Celtics are too good of an offensive team (and too diligent about hunting threes) to think you’re going walk them down for 1.5 quarters with the talent the Sixers have available.

I don’t think I want to pin this one on Maxey, even though he is the guy with control of the offense. The coaching staff has to step in and urge these guys to hurry it up at get into their offense at some point during the giant collapse.

A side effect of this — Boston prevented Maxey from getting up jumpers for a lot of the second half. By the time they got into their stuff, his only real option was to divebomb into traffic, undoing what had been working for 2.5 quarters. If I had any criticism for him, it would be that he let Boston play him out of the game with tougher, more physical defense in the second half, and he probably needed to pivot into more of a playmaking-heavy role.

— Way too much Kelly Oubre in the moments that mattered in the second half. The offense completely died when Maxey was off the floor for roughly four minutes in the second half, and even after Maxey came back in the fourth quarter, there were a couple of possessions where their star guard didn’t touch the ball once because Oubre was barreling into traffic.

Plus, he missed four critical free throws, and in a tight game, those misses loomed large.

— Whatever and whoever they have out there, this is still a terrible loss. Just can’t let this game get away from you when you’re in complete control for most of three quarters.

The Ugly

— Make. Your. Damn. Free. Throws.

— Nick Nurse has had some strange challenges this season, but I am not sure he has called for the replay review in a more useless situation than the one we saw on Sunday night. He opted to use his one (and only) challenge on a Kyle Lowry foul with 10:39 left in the second quarter. Even if you win that, do you really care that much about Al Horford free throws with most of the game left while you’re up double digits?

That ended up mattering, with the Sixers losing out on further challenge opportunities that looked like better bets to be won. Plus, the Celtics won their own challenge on a momentum-shifting play in the second half, helping them complete a massive comeback.

— I think people who are overly concerned with how many threes are taken in today’s NBA need to adjust to the reality of the league today. I think people who are specifically aggravated by Boston’s offense have a fair point or two to make. Watching them pass up open (or open-ish) shots at the rim for the sake of hunting threes leads to some absolutely grotesque possessions.

On one first-half possession, Kristaps Porzingis had Tyrese Maxey, a human being who is around a foot shorter than him, stuck on him in the paint. He had him beat after a half-turn and was something like six feet from the basket. Instead of shooting the ball, he threw a spinning jump pass out to the perimeter. Clang. These guys are just a complete waste of height sometimes.

— The Celtics need to take these horseshit jerseys and throw them in the trash. They are a team that should wear their classics or not bother taking the court.