After losing their first round game at the Garden, the 76ers know they have to bounce back on Monday and bounce back – literally and figuratively.
It means being more physical.
That means boxing out, playing angles and playing harder.
And that means playing better, with coach Nick Nurse citing disappointing outings from Buddy Hield, Kelly Oubre Jr. and Paul Reed.
The Sixers’ bench was dominated, and they were hammered on the boards, outscored 23-9 on the offensive glass and humiliated 26-8 for second-chance points.
The problem was easy to identify.
“Rebound,” Nicolas Batum said, adding of the Knicks’ offensive boards: “In a playoff game, it’s way too much.”
The Knicks led the league in offensive rebounding.
But after seeing Mitchell Robinson’s seven nearly match their total alone on the offensive glass, re-watching the tape reiterated the need to shore up their shoddy work on the glass.
“A lot of things were confirmed by what we all saw live,” Nurse said. “Look, we did a few things really, really well, schematically and what we were trying to do. We didn’t do one thing very well. … We let them play to one of their strengths, absolutely to the fullest.
And the Sixers did not play according to theirs.
The Philadelphia bench was dominated 42-7. Hield is an elite shooter, but he went 0-for-2 in his very first playoff game.
“Buddy didn’t have much luck. … He did a few plays there. He didn’t play well,” Nurse said. “It’s a game where you can’t extend the minutes when a guy makes three or four mistakes. But I say this: he will be a factor in the series.
“I think Kelly can play a lot better too, right? I don’t think he was the athlete he should have been. …But he understands that too.
Another backup who will need to bounce back is Reed.
Despite being minus-21 largely in relief of Joel Embiid, Nurse said he’s going to play more with the two together to help with the rebounding. But Reed must play under control.
“He was out of position a lot,” Nurse said. “I thought he threw a lot of blocked shots that he didn’t need to and he didn’t make them and they ended up putting them away because he left, got away from his man. But we’re going to show him this.
“I think he has an opportunity. He plays hard. He wants to – I think he played a little too aggressively. He came too early to help when it wasn’t necessary and it ended up hurting us and stuff like that. But we will show it to him and (he) will understand.
New York Post
