We all know what the problems are for the Sixers against the Knicks and we all know they can\u2019t be fixed during this series. After losses in Games 2 and 3 against New York, we can no longer simply point to the sub-48-hour turnaround from the first round to the second round as a reason for Philadelphia\u2019s fatigue. The Sixers\u2019 star players are getting outplayed by the Knicks starters and New York has several more bodies it can trust off the bench. When you put it like that, it\u2019s kind of hard to fathom Philly was even competitive in Game 2, having lost Games 1 and 3 by double-digits.<\/p>\n
No one should be pointing the finger at head coach Nick Nurse for the Sixers\u2019 struggles in this series, and, to be fair, it doesn\u2019t seem like anyone is. With the exception of maybe playing Dominick Barlow a little more in Game 2 when Joel Embiid was not available, Nurse has not had any levers to pull. Nurse finally emptied his bench in Game 3 when New York had the game won, but that\u2019s about the only time he\u2019ll ever do so. Frankly, who can blame him?<\/p>\n
It begs the question, why are so many useless players on Philadelphia\u2019s roster? Surely, Daryl Morey will be asked that question in some fashion at his end-of-season media availability. For as much focus gets put on trading Jared McCain away at the deadline this year, the issues are bigger than one subtraction anyway. In the last two drafts, Philadelphia spent picks in the top half of the second round on Adem Bona and Johni Broome. Bona has seen some meaningful minutes in this year\u2019s postseason but has been far from a regular rotation player for Nurse to rely on. Broome only appeared in 11 NBA games in the regular season so he was never going to see playoff minutes. Not all second-round picks become playoff rotation players, but those bigs are taking up NBA roster spots.<\/p>\n
Last season, Justin Edwards was playing a lot of minutes for a bad Sixers team. He hasn\u2019t seen those same minutes for a better Sixers team in 2025-26. In the summer, Morey gave Trendon Watford a two-year minimum contract (2026-27 is a team option). Watford had a bench role for the Sixers in the regular season but his only postseason action has been in garbage time. Part of this year\u2019s trade deadline was converting Jabari Walker\u2019s contract to a standard deal. Like Watford, Walker saw bench minutes in the regular season but has been phased out in the playoffs.<\/p>\n
Then there\u2019s the veterans. Kyle Lowry has been lauded for his leadership role, but he\u2019s taking up a roster spot without giving any on-court contributions. Andre Drummond has had his moments from time to time in these two playoff series with Boston and New York, but has been far from consistent. When you add this all up, you end up with six-to-eight players on a nightly basis for Philadelphia that are either sitting on the bench until garbage time or are never taking their warm-up clothes off.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s fair to wonder what meetings have looked like this season between Nurse and Morey or what they will look like when the season is over. Nurse would be well within his right to tell Morey \u201cI can\u2019t play these guys!\u201d in reference to his reserves if he hasn\u2019t done so already.<\/p>\n
Nurse\u2019s actions this postseason tell us that he agrees with the loudest complaint fans have had about the team during the Knicks series. The roster just isn\u2019t deep enough. So what is Nurse left to do? Play his starters 40 minutes a night and cross his fingers they can outplay the Knicks starters. That hasn\u2019t happened and so you get a 3-0 deficit.<\/p>\n
To be completely fair, there were moments in third quarter of Game 3 where you might have been able to talk yourself into it being one that would go down to the wire. We got some glimpses of fight in the third quarter from Philly after an abysmal second quarter saw a four-point lead after one turn into an eight-point deficit at the half. The Sixers trailed by just two with 2:28 remaining in the third quarter. But the Knicks were not at all fazed, and quickly grew the lead back to nine by the end of the quarter and coasted to a victory in the fourth.<\/p>\n
Despite some signs of fight in the third quarter, when the quarter was over, the Sixers had gone 36 minutes without a single point from their bench. When it\u2019s that jarring for three full quarters of a playoff game, that\u2019s a sign that the head coach doesn\u2019t believe he can win games with the players he has on his bench. We know this. Nurse knows this.<\/p>\n
As a result, Nurse runs his stars into the ground. Embiid\u2019s availability is always in question and even when he plays he does not always look 100%. Tyrese Maxey could very well still be dealing with complications from his pinky injury. Paul George is 36 and just not going to regularly perform at the level he performed against Boston. Sometimes, VJ Edgecombe will look like a rookie. When even one of these things happens, the Sixers are bound to lose the game because they don\u2019t have a way to compensate for their stars underperforming.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s all left Nurse with one of two options. Would he rather watch this season die by playing bench players he doesn\u2019t believe in or allow his star players to wear down? He\u2019s chosen the latter and I think we all would do the same if we were in his shoes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We all know what the problems are for the Sixers against the Knicks and we all know they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":730337,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3769],"tags":[679,7,6,678,207,3817,5902,87144],"class_list":{"0":"post-730336","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia-76ers","8":"tag-76ers","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-philadelphia","12":"tag-philadelphia-76ers","13":"tag-philadelphia76ers","14":"tag-sixers-analysis","15":"tag-sixers-playoffs"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116548333937486154","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=730336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730336\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/730337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=730336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=730336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=730336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}