Why is it that year after year, coach after coach, team after team, the Sixers do not box out and go for rebounds?
PHILADELPHIA — The playoffs, just as turpentine strips paint, can gut belief from a basketball team’s soul.
Do you stick with a game plan against a fixed opponent, borne of hours of fierce, detailed study by the best coaching minds in the world, when what they tell you to do to achieve success doesn’t work with the season on the line? Do you still trust teammates who don’t knock down open shots?
For 12 catastrophic minutes, the 76ers tried, and failed, to get the ball to the NBA’s defending Most Valuable Player, Joel Embiid, in positions for him to dominate. When they did get him the ball, a ravenous Knicks defense, shorthanded with both of its top two centers unavailable, attacked Embiid with double teams, daring him to give up the rock and make the right play — passing to an open teammate.
This, he did. But the other 76ers couldn’t make the Knicks pay.
Nor could Embiid, who looked tired down the stretch after playing the entire second half and 44 minutes overall, bully his way to the basket to draw fouls, a staple of his career, and through large stretches of this series.
Combined with the Knicks’ relentless work on the offensive glass in the fourth quarter, New York held Philly to 16 fourth-quarter points and took Game 4, 97-92, for a 3-1 series lead. Embiid missed all five of his field-goal attempts in the fourth quarter and made a single free throw, the last of his 27 points. The Sixers, collectively, made just 1 of 9 3-pointers in the fourth and didn’t make a field goal in the last five minutes of the game.
Knicks outrebound Sixers — again — and place Joel Embiid and Co. on brink of elimination
New York held a dominant 18-8 overall edge in that category in the final period, including seven offensive rebounds that yielded 11 second-chance points.
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A sequence about four minutes into Sunday’s fourth quarter illustrates how the New York Knicks held on to their Game 4 lead over the 76ers:
Precious Achiuwa dunk attempt blocked by Joel Embiid. Josh Hart offensive rebound. Achiuwa missed layup. Achiuwa offensive rebound. OG Anunoby dunk.
That gave the Knicks a five-point advantage in an eventual 97-92 win in another wildly physical and competitive matchup of this first-round series. After the Sixers had largely cleaned up their issues on the glass in Games 2 and 3, rebounding drastically swung back in favor of the Knicks to propel them to a 3-1 lead and put the Sixers’ season on the brink. New York held a dominant 18-8 overall edge in that category in the final period, including seven offensive rebounds that yielded 11 second-chance points.
“Certainly became a big factor in the fourth,” Sixers coach Nick Nurse said.
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Overall, New York outrebounded the Sixers, 52-42, on Sunday, and collected 15 offensive rebounds that led to 21 second-chance points. Haralabos Voulgaris, the former Dallas Mavericks director of quantitative research and development, also noted on X (formerly Twitter) that 17 of those points came off “live” offensive rebounds. And particularly concerning for the Sixers was that, during that decisive fourth quarter, the 6-foot-8 Achiuwa was playing center because starter Isaiah Hartenstein had picked up five fouls by the end of the third, and backup Mitchell Robinson was a late scratch due to an ankle injury.
“They got some extra possessions that cost us,” All-Star guard Tyrese Maxey said.
Nurse praised the energy and activity of Achiuwa (who had three offensive rebounds in the final frame) and Anunoby (who had two), players he previously coached when they were all with the Toronto Raptors. Embiid believes another contributor was All-Star point guard Jalen Brunson’s shot volume — he went 18-of-34 to finish with a Knicks playoff-record 47 points — because it “leaves a lot of open lanes to just attack the offensive glass.”
» READ MORE: The Knicks are better than the Sixers in every way. Oh, and New Yorkers took over the Wells Fargo Center.
“It almost seems like they just know who’s going to shoot it,” said Embiid, who finished with 10 rebounds in addition to his 27 points and six assists, “ … and then by the time you turn around, your man is already past you and then you’re left with a three-on-two.
“But I don’t even think that was an issue tonight. We got a lot of bad bounces. … Sometimes you can do as much as possible to try to box out. But if the ball doesn’t bounce your way, [you still won’t get the rebound].”
Still, through four games, the Knicks have a 61-36 advantage in offensive rebounds, and a 79-40 edge in second-chance points, according to StatMuse. That is not a surprise for a Knicks team that, during the regular season, led the NBA in offensive rebounds (12.7 per game) and ranked second in second-chance points (16.3 per game). The Sixers, meanwhile, ranked 23rd in defensive rebounds (31.9 per game), but 11th in second-chance points allowed (13.6 per game).
Nobody has embodied that relentless emphasis for the Knicks more than former Villanova standout Josh Hart, who on Sunday corralled 17 more rebounds (five on the offensive end) to prove a player can have a crucial impact on a game even while going 0-of-7 from the floor. He is widely considered the best rebounding guard in the NBA, prompting Sixers starting wing Kelly Oubre Jr. to say Hart is “wired on life” on Saturday and veteran forward Nico Batum to add, “if he’s got a secret, give it to me, please.”
Maxey said that one of Nurse’s pregame messages Sunday was that surely Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau had shown his team film from Game 1, when they had an overwhelming 55-33 reboun
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