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The Seamstresses; Eduoard Vuillard; 1890
The Miami Heat went Playoff Mode in the first half in Philadelphia, drawing boos from the 76ers faithful. I’m sure evidence to the contrary exists, but it felt to me as though most prior versions of the Philadelphia 76ers would have crumbled at that point and let defeatism wash over them.
No offense to Doc Rivers or Ben Simmons or Bryan Colangelo or James Harden, and certainly no offense to Joel Embiid, who was drafted a decade ago this summer. But rarely have we considered this era of Sixers basketball as particularly resilient. Snakebitten? Yes. Nerve-wracking? Yes. Bizarre? Absolutely. But not resilient.
Maybe that’s changed.
Nicolas Batum had a two-way performance for the ages, hitting six of the team’s 12 threes and forcing Miami out of their stifling zone. There was a stretch of this game where Erik Spoelstra seemed to be just openly trolling Nick Nurse with the elements he was spinning up. That Nurse survived and prevailed is a testament to … well, mostly Batum’s nervy play, I guess. But also the fact that Nurse is also considered a top sideline tactician. Doc and Brett Brown before him had … different attributes.
In any case, for me the biggest play of the game was a clearly hobbled Joel Embiid still drawing a high double because he’s still Joel Embiid, and firing a perfect pass underneath to Kelly Oubre for and-1 that sealed the game. (Though, it almost didn’t because the Sixers botched the final inbounds. Luckily for them, it happened as the clock expired.)
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