In a surprise, Philadelphia evened the second round against Toronto by slowing down the game: a throwback to past styles of play.
TORONTO — Is it possible for a team to make a defiant, bold statement without scoring in the N. B. A.? In 2019? The Philadelphia 76ers, a team that seemed vastly outgunned against the Toronto Raptors in the first game of their Eastern Conference semifinals, would like a word, and possibly a time machine to consult the basketball gods of yesterday. And that word they would like might be “outlast.”
The Sixers gutted out a series-tying win on Monday night at Scotiabank Arena, 94-89, and did so with only one of their stars playing well in an arena where Philadelphia had not won since 2012. Neither team cracked 100 points, a rarity in today’s high-paced, no-conscience 3-point heavy style of play. In the first round of the N. B. A. playoffs, both teams scored less than 100 only twice in 36 games. During the regular season, the worst offensive team in the league, the Memphis Grizzlies, averaged more than 103.
“When you shrink your rotations, it’s naïve for us to think you’re going to play a game like a track meet when it’s a fist fight. It’s a grind the whole game,” Brett Brown, the coach of the Sixers, said after the game.
Grind? Sure. Fist fight? Bring it on. But this one was a slog. The Sixers played like they were clinging to their basketball life. Game 2 might have satisfied fans nostalgic for the N. B. A. of the 2000s, when the tortoise was favored over the hare and “SportsCenter” highlights were full of 18-foot bank shots from Tim Duncan. Philadelphia won despite shooting less than 40 percent from the field, but this style of play also might be how it advances to the next round: pure survival. The Raptors are, on paper, a deeper, more talented team. For the Sixers: slow and steady wins the race.
Of course, in the playoffs, bench players stay on the bench more. Games slow down. Teams ask elite players, who are conserved during the regular season, to play more minutes against the better defenses of the best units.
But Philadelphia’s top star was limited in Game 2: Joel Embiid, the swaggering franchise center, was a game-time decision because of gastroenteritis (He described it, uh, more colloquially in the postgame news conference but added that there was never any doubt he was playing.
