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76ers coach Nick Nurse calls out ‘absolutely unacceptable’ effort vs. Celtics
"A lot went wrong, that's for sure."
The Celtics controlled Game 1 of the Eastern Conference quarterfinal from start to finish, cruising to a 123-91 victory over the 76ers on Sunday.
It was a nightmare start for Philadelphia. They got little offensive production from Tyrese Maxey. They let Jayson Tatum get into the paint for easy looks which energized him. The Celtics won the battle on the boards.
Effort seemed to be lacking at times for Philadelphia, which is a troubling sign at any point in a series — especially at the very beginning.
“A lot went wrong, that’s for sure,” 76ers coach Nick Nurse said. “I think it started right from the beginning with not getting off to a great start offensively, getting into foul trouble with both bigs, etc. The first quarter, obviously, was moving past us pretty quick and we didn’t do enough at either end to settle into the game.”
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“I thought from the second quarter to the midway of the third we finally got ourselves underneath us a little bit and played some pretty good basketball, but the minutes around that were absolutely unacceptable.”
The 76ers clearly missed former league MVP Joel Embiid, who is recovering from an appendectomy. Andre Drummond and Adem Bona combined for 5 points and eight rebounds despite getting Neemias Queta and Nikola Vucevic into foul trouble in the first half.
Maxey (21 points, 8 assists) showed flashes of being able to get into the paint and create opportunities scoring opportunities. Paul George chipped in 17 points — an average offensive game by his standards these days.
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Add an abnormally bad outside shooting night (4-for-23 from 3-point range), and it was a recipe for a rough outing in Boston.
“I thought we did a pretty good job of shot creation, probably not near enough, but certainly had out chances there,” Nurse said. “You can’t live with not making those. I thought not making those affected us in transition and a little bit defensively. I jut didn’t think we executed well on the defensive end and some of the things that we wanted to do and put ourselves in a big hole.”
Tatum turned in one of his best performances since his return from the Achilles’ injury, posting a 25-point, 11-rebound double-double.
“He just did a good job of getting downhill,” Nurse said. “I thought, and we were just caught in not very good help positions with him and that just can’t happen. He got to some space and we can’t let him do that.”
Sam Hauser rewarded Joe Mazzulla for putting him in the starting lineup, knocking down four of his six 3-point attempts.
Jaylen Brown attacked the basket with his usual ferocity and finished with 25 points. Queta, while limited to just 15 minutes because of foul trouble, went 5-for-5 from the field.
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The Celtics generated 22 points off of Philadelphia turnovers, the fourth most among playoff teams through one game. The 76ers turned the ball over 14 times compared to eight Celtic turnovers. Philadelphia only scored two points off of turnovers.
Philadelphia’s 23 3-point attempts were the second-fewest among the 16 playoff teams, trailing only the Lakers.
Nurse identified a few areas of improvement that Philadelphia will focus on heading into Tuesday night’s Game 2.
“We certainly can’t give up that much in transition, that’s a big one. We’ve got to take care of the ball better, too many turnovers that also were live ball that led to some of that transition. We’ve got to generate more threes against this team. We’ve got to generate them, we’ve got to take them, and we’ve got to make some, which I’m sure we will.”
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