Apr 22, 2024 4 min read

When You Think You're a Genius

You can't tell Nick Nurse nothing. That's not a good thing. (Image Credit: "The Morning Call")

Nick Nurse portrays himself as very smart. The media generally cooperates with that viewpoint, but I've long felt that his execution in end-game scenarios was lacking. His last couple of years with the Raptors, he often failed to have his team foul when down in the final minute of a game, wasting precious seconds his team didn't have. You could find my critiques in my Twitter history, if you were so inclined. Tonight, he made the opposite error.

The Knicks got the ball back with 1:09 left, down four after a Tyrese Maxey three. The Sixers had two time outs remaining. Jalen Brunson missed a shot but Isaiah Hartenstein got the rebound and the ball back to OG Anunoby. He was quickly and clearly fouled by Kyle Lowry. It was a non-shooting foul, it didn't give the Knicks free throws, and Philly couldn't have even hoped to regain possession if the call was overturned. The only upside would have been reducing Lowry's foul count from five back to four, but with less than a minute remaining, this shouldn't have been that enticing (you can tell because after the call was upheld, Lowry stayed in the game). Yet for some reason, Nurse chose to challenge the call. When the call was upheld, Nurse and the Sixers had just one time out remaining.

Flash forward 30 or so seconds, and the Knicks had cut the lead to two points, and pressed their luck with a full-court press. If the Sixers still had two time outs, they could have called time out here and advanced the ball, making inbounding the ball a much easier proposition. But they didn't have two time outs left, and when the Knicks stole the ball from a flopping Maxey and hit a go-ahead three pointer, the Sixers were suddenly upside down. At this point, they would burn their final time out, and would get not one but two chances to score, but couldn't execute either time.

The Sixers had every opportunity to tie the series and send it back to Philly at one game apiece. Certainly, the blame for them not doing so can't rest solely with Nick Nurse. Players play, and inbounding the ball is something an NBA team is always supposed to be able to do. Even after that, it took an incredibly unlikely series of events for New York to get the lead back. But it's the playoffs, unlikely things happen all the time. A coach's job is to put his team in the best position to succeed, and on that account, Nick Nurse failed dramatically with his second challenge. The challenge was about the coach's ego, and it cost his team dearly.

Other Early Playoff Thoughts

Game 1 of Miami v. Boston had all of the Miami tricks. They tried zone defense, they tried Bam Adebayo illegal screens – the one where he trucked Derrick White while not even having both feet planted was especially egregious. It had my personal favorite, the play where after Adebayo sets a number of hard, illegal screens, a player tries to fight through him, and Adebayo flops to the ground, as if anyone is strong enough to really knock Adebayo down. And of course, in Caleb Martin undercutting Jayson Tatum, the quintessential dirty plays which had a plausible excuse for it not being dirty. Yes, Jrue Holiday pushed Martin, but the velocity with which he pushed him did not equate to how hard he hit Tatum. Miami does this sort of stuff all the time. Unfortunately for them, Kyle Lowry was the master of it, and they don't have him anymore. And in the end, none of Miami's tricks mattered, because right now they just don't have enough offense.
It's going to be really hard for the Indiana Pacers to win if Tyrese Haliburton only takes seven shots per game, but coach Rick Carlisle let the game get away from Indiana by insisting on playing most of his bench. TJ McConnell is usually a reliable reserve, as is Jalen Smith. They were terrible on Sunday, and the rest of the bench wasn't any better. Opi Toppin, Ben Sheppard, Isaiah Jackson, and Doug McDermott were a combined -37 in ~30 minutes of game action. The only Indiana starter who played 40 minutes was Pascal Siakam at 40:13. Someone tell Carlisle the playoffs started.
Watching Game 1 of Mavericks-Clippers was eerily reminiscent of Game 1 of Sixers-Celtics last season. James Harden came into that game on nine days of rest, and with the extra rest he came in and dropped 45 points, immediately making it a harder series on Boston than it needed to be. He wasn't quite as good yesterday, but his 28 points and eight assists were both team highs and helped his lead his team to victory. Technically, the game came on nine days rest, but on the 12th, Harden had only played 9:58. The last time he had really played was 14 days earlier, on April 7th vs. Cleveland. Last year, Harden's Games 2 and 3 saw him fall back to earth, shooting a combined 5-for-28 in two Philly losses. It'll be interesting to see if the same sort of thing happens this year. The first round does feel like it takes forever, but you don't get nine to 14 days of rest between games.