thybulle is a fucking idiot. the funny thing is, he was sort of like the golden boy, even more than maxey, coming into this season. people loved him and thought he was so quirky and wholesome and fun. i always sort of worried about this, because his mom (who passed away) was a naturopath and i figured growing up in that environment, he might have some weird beliefs. sure enough.
ive watched every sixers game this season and focused on them pretty much beyond any other sport i follow. i think the playoffs are going to be really interesting, because either the sixers have basically been just sandbagging and playing at 50% effort, knowing that the playoffs were going to be a slog and they needed to be well rested, or this team is just fundamentally broken. embiid played out of his mind this season offensively, carrying the team for most of the year before harden arrived, but he took nights off on defense....more specifically, he took entire halves off where he wasnt engaged at all defensively. at his best, hes one of the 3 best defenders in the league, but for most of this season, outside of small stretches, he played at half speed defensively. maybe it was because he was saving himself, and maybe it was because he was shouldering so much of the offensive burden.
the harden/embiid pairing has been a success. their 2 man numbers are insane, and our offense is basically the best in the league with those 2 on the court. defensively, it hasnt been world class, but its been fine. the bench has been an abject disaster, but a lot of that is down to shooting variance, who knows what is going to happen in the playoffs. i expect that harden, embiid, maxey and harris will be playing 38-40 minutes a night every night in the playoffs, barring blowouts. the bench looks like shake, niang, either green or antivax, depending on who starts, and then the backup big. sixers fans are screaming for our dumbass coach to not play deandre jordan, but we'll see how that goes. if they can just play even in the 8 minutes embiid sits, i think we can go deep into the playoffs
first round matchup isnt great, would have much rather played chicago obviously. but toronto doesnt have a ton of scary offensive forces. gary trent turns into klay thompson against the sixers, and vanvleet is good. the last game we lost to them, siakam played out of his mind and made tons of really tough shots. that stuff tends to even out over a 7 game series. i expect embiid to guard him quite a bit, and toronto really doesnt have anyone to match up with embiid defensively.
it all really comes down to harden. hes been playing at half speed for the last 15 games. if hes injured, we're not winning anything, obviously. the team says he is healthy. if he is healthy and hes just been coasting so he didn't reinjure the hamstring in meaningless regular season games, and he has another gear or two, then i think we're in business. because hes had no burst at all for most of the last 15-20 games. hes the key to everything at this point.
