Outmatched Nets fall to Sixers 121-101 in Game 1 of NBA first-round playoff series
PHILADELPHIA — It was over at the top of the fourth quarter.
Backup Sixers center Paul Reed grabbed an offensive rebound, shook Nets wing Royce O’Neale with a behind-the-back dribble, then lost Joe Harris with a pump fake before finishing the play with a layup at the rim.
The Wells Fargo Center crowd erupted. Nets head coach Jacque Vaughn immediately called a timeout. Spencer Dinwiddie flung the ball toward the official closest to the baseline.
“That’s what he does,” said reserve guard Seth Curry, Reed’s former Sixers teammate. “You got to know he’s coming to hit the offensive glass, do the dirty work.”
That play effectively ended the game. It created a 17-point advantage for the Sixers, who went on to win Game 1 of their first-round playoff series against the Nets, 121-101, in Philadelphia Saturday afternoon.
Reed’s play isn’t the reason the Nets dropped their opening playoff matchup, but it’s a microcosm of the challenge that lies ahead for a team that doesn’t like the underdog moniker but wears the appropriate shoe size.
The Sixers simply have too many weapons. The Nets are overmatched.
Mikal Bridges scored 30 points on 12-of-18 shooting from the field, Cam Johnson added 18 points and Spencer Dinwiddie tallied 14 points and seven assists.
The Nets struggled, however, to find offense elsewhere. They turned the ball over 20 times and only attempted 29 threes – converting on 13 of them – despite the goal of attempting closer to 50.
The Sixers also attempted 19 more shots than the Nets, thanks to 14 offensive rebounds to just five by Brooklyn.
“When I look at the stat sheet, I just look at the shot discrepancy. It’s been a problem for us all year,” Vaughn said postgame. “So two-fold. The turnovers: We should be turning them over, not us turn the basketball over, and then for us, we’ve got to shoot threes. That comes with getting the rebounds. We had some initial stops, they got offensive rebounds, some of them on long bounces. Part of basketball, [but] some of them, we’ve got to hit somebody.”
Against a scoring juggernaut in Philadelphia playing in front of a sold-out home crowd, it wasn’t enough. Certainly not enough against a team as loaded as these Sixers, who have their eyes on much bigger fish in pursuit of an NBA championship.
Three Sixers starters scored 20 or more points, led by 26 from Embiid. A point of emphasis in Brooklyn was to keep the Sixers’ star big man off the free throw line, where he scores a third of his points.
On Saturday, almost half of his points came at the charity stripe: Embiid shot a perfect 11-of-11 from the foul line.
Yet the Nets did an admirable job of containing the presumptive league Most Valuable Player in the first half, holding him to just 10 points on three-of-seven shooting.
In the second half, the Sixers adjusted.
“They put guys in different positions and they were able to combat our double teams a lot,” Curry said. “Put Joel in the middle of the floor obviously and he was able to move the ball around. Honestly, some of the stuff they did tonight, we were willing to live with. So we got to adjust for Game 2, and that’s why it’s a series.”
James Harden shot 7-of-13 from downtown with open looks coming when the Nets keyed in on Embiid in the post. Tobias Harris was also the beneficiary of the attention the Nets paid Embiid, hitting all three of his attempts from downtown and scoring 21 points on the night.
Reed scored 11 off the bench, none more debilitating than the bucket he scored to put the dagger in Game 1. His points came with Embiid on the bench and with all the attention on Harden, who finished with 13 assists.
“He got a couple of offensive rebounds, he had a drop-off, and so I think his baskets have to be contested, all of those,” Vaughn said. “But the focus is still going to be on James and that group and the shooters in that group.”
