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The Celtics big adjustment that stopped Embiid & Harden



How did the Celtics come back from a 3-2 deficit against Philadelphia? This detailed film breakdown & scouting report breaks down a massive Boston adjustment in Game 6 that changed the series, effectively shutting down 2023 NBA MVP Joel Embiid, James Harden and the 76ers offense.

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Ben Taylor is the author of Thinking Basketball, a Nylon Calculus contributor, creator of the Backpicks Top 40 series & host of the Thinking Basketball podcast.

Stats courtesy:
http://www.pbpstats.com @bballport
https://www.basketball-reference.com
https://stats.nba.com
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Footage in this video is owned by the NBA and its partners. It is intended for critique and education.

Music by csus (instrumental)

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26 Comments

  1. Good decision to start Timelord, but throughout the series I honestly couldn't get why Mazula haven't done it earlier. Rob is a great defender and is really a joker in Mazula's pocket against Embiid. I am no coach and may not understand something in schemes or may be there were some internal reasons for that, but it seemed such an obvious thing to start Timelord earlier

  2. Im really disappointed in how this gets a break down but not the heat dispatching of the bucks and out performing what people thought they could do. Do my basketball nerd channels hate Jimmy and the heat?

  3. After seeing 6:00, that weird pick and roll defense tactic, made me think Embiid was right, he needs his team to score those open shots : Though big props to Tatum for his absolutely amazing game!

  4. Wild to see Embiid miss open passes in many of these clips. I feel like this defense really works because Embiid doesn't read the floor that well.

  5. The fact that the Sixers got eliminated while the Nuggets are still in the race tells me who the REAL MVP is: Jokic

  6. To be honest this gave a lot of context to Embiid's infamous quote that everyone trashed him for. Embiid played badly but it's baffling to me that the rest of the sixers played even worse somehow. Harden couldn't finish at all. Philadelphia's spacing sucked they did embiid no favors once Robert Williams came to help and Doc Rivers stagnant offense of the regular season shined through even more here. Also smart for Mazulla to attack Embiid on the pick and roll since he was playing on a bum knee. Doesn't make me as optimistic about the Celtics as I was before watching this video because despite Williams excellent defense, and Tatums awakening it was obvious that we exploited some glaring weaknesses here that other teams with better coaching won't let us.

  7. Joe Mazzula ( rookie coach ) just schooled Doc Rivers ( veteran coach ). He put 2 'bigs' out to crowd & out-muscle the MVP Embiid. Doc just sat there with a 'DUH' look on his face. Kept his 'bigs' Reed, Harrel, & Dedman at the far end of the bench in their warm-up suits. Granted they don't provide much offense – but that's 15 fouls to use up by knocking down, grabbing, holding, tackling, sitting on Tatum. Anything to prevent him from getting off a shot.

  8. Just watched game. One of Lakers nuggets and the Lakers did this to joker late with hachimura and Davis. Great analysis and help me see what they were doing, appreciate you!

  9. Really hard to evaluate the responsabilities of doc that wasn't able to counter this adjustement (that was pretty basic imho, nothing so mindblowing) if your stars don't show up and play that bad; how can you design some good offensive plays if harden, that is as a matter of fact the main ball handler, play THAT bad? There weren't other players able to create advantage, maybe maxey but they should've worked on him more during the regular season, instead of using him just for catch'n shoot or drives.
    Philly is in a pretty bad situation rn, too many questions and doubts and zero answers.

  10. Sixers playing give the ball to Joel and get out of the way and its horrible basketball

  11. This tells me that Doc lost the Sixers this series for the lack of adjustments on the Celtics new gameplan on D and less responsibility on Harden and Embiid due to lack of coaching.

  12. Bro how are you not going to include the counters! The Sixers should have either ran Spain or used Tucker as a pick and roll screener. The lack of adjustments from the Sixers was ridiculous. Not surprising at all Rivers got fired.

  13. Lmao am I the only one noticing embid’s picks are pathetic? He might as well just run straight through he’s not even setting a pick. I feel bad for his teammates making them work that hard

  14. Just embarrassing by Doc. Not much better for Joe: took almost the whole series to play Rob and Al together

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