just watch this end of game sequence - to the joy of philly's home broadcasters talking about how fun the post game is going to be.
Lowry misses a free throw that would have put the game away.
Brunson does push off - a play that happens pretty much every time down the court - but he does do it.
THREE (and arguably four with Harris) 76ers are closer to the loose ball than Donte DiVencenzo is - Lowry, Maxey and Embiid. but Lowry gets it. Every Knick is diving at the ball. Harris and Batum are standing still watching.
Philly is ball watching instead of communicating and matching up - which allows Brunson to be wide open in the corner. Lowry in particular runs at the ball and reaches - possibly smacking DiVencenzo on the arm with both hands, but definetly putting the defense in a really bad spot. he SHOULD have gone to Brunson. even if he doesn't - he needs to just stay in front. his reach here is why the knicks get a shot off the scramble.
Maxey has an amazing closeout - he's so damn fast - but because he has to move so quickly (again, because Lowry didn't rotate properly) - he's out of control just enough to allow Brunson to side step him for an open look.
On Brunson's shot - it looks like his foot could be on the line, but there's a fan shot from the baseline floating around that shows that it clearly isn't. There's daylight between his toe - and the ref is looking right at it from the same angle.
Crazy roll on that three from Brunson - who, let's be real - had an awful game.
Lowry is VERY close to a five second call. You can see that he knows it by the way he nonchalantly tosses the ball up. Like watch that - it's like he hot potatoes it to Maxey - which is probably why Maxey doesn't get a good grip on it.
Maxey pushes off Josh Hart to get some space. That's a foul. Brunson grabs Maxey's jersey. That's a foul. Neither are called.
Nurse never actually puts his hands together. There's visible space between his hands as he holds them above his head. Coaches will do this a lot when they're considering taking a time out - but there's no urgency to it. he isn't slamming his hands together, he's not demonstratively screaming at the refs. he isn't running around searching down for a ref (who are supposed to be looking at the players, not the coach). And he pulls them apart quickly when the ball is passed in to make sure nobody accidently gives him the timeout after the ball is inbounded. To complain about this one is absurd.
to break away from the video - Nurse himself said in the postgame that he wanted a quick inbounds and purposefully didn't take the timeout right away. that's on him. that's his fault. he wanted to play it out vs. advance the ball to half court.
The strange pass from Lowry deflects off Maxey's hands. The ball is not under control for very long. When Maxey finally gets the ball under control, he falls down. That's a travel. You can see Brunson making the travel sign looking for the refs to make the call - and everyone kind of stands still waiting for the call to be made. If you want to argue Brunson bumped him? ok - maybe, but it's also not clear that when the bump happened that Maxey had full control of the ball yet - especially in real time. So play on is probably the right move. If anything it looks like the bump happened before Maxey had control, which is not a foul on a loose ball. Maxey is on his feet as Hart tries to tie him up for a jump ball.
Here - Maxey is falling down - on his own mind you. Brunson didn't bump him down to make him fall. He fell after he ripped the ball away from Hart to avoid a jump ball. Nurse still has his hands by his sides as he's staring at his player falling down with the ball. He never tried to get a timeout WHILE the possible jump ball was happening. He's just staring.
This is the first time Nurse calls for timeout here...
The ball is clearly loose. Maxey does not have control over it. It's not close. You can see that it's lose. The baseline official is looking right at the play. There's no control.
Nurse is still trying to get a timeout when DiVincenzo is shooting. He's not even looking at the play anymore.
But once again there's a loose ball - and nobody from Philly peruses the ball.
The shot goes up... Tobias Harris is the only person who blocks anyone out (which is so ironic). Everyone else ballwatches. If Embiid takes two steps in to bump Hartenstein there, he doesn't get the ball. The FOUR closest players to the rim are all 76ers.
Embiid, who couldn't be bothered to box out Hartenstein, for some strange reason pushes Lowry - who flops like a fish because he probably thought it was a Knick who did it. For some strange reason Maxey just never gets up for a solid 7 seconds. He just lays on the ground and watches.
The irony is that Embiid may have actually hurt Lowry here with his push.
There's nothing Philly can do at this point. DiVincenzo is ready, wide open, and has rotated over to the top of the key to give OG an easy look. Maxey should have been the player to rotate over - but he spent the entire play on the ground. He didn't go after the loose ball, and he made no effort to rotate. Batum and Harris both run - Harris dropping off to pursue the rebound when he sees Batum is closer, which is the right play. Embiid finally tries to box out Hartenstein... who is still on the floor.
Embiid complained about the timeouts not being called in the locker room as well. He said he tried to get a timeout as well. Never in the video do you see Embiid making any hand signals or turning to the ref. Maybe he yelled it - but you can't see him saying anything at all in the entire video.
remember... Embiid is closer, is 7 feet tall and a massive human being.
nowhere to be found. he never even jumps. only 76er to pursue the rebound was Harris.
76ers choose to go full court instead of advancing the ball to half court on the time out. why? i don't know. probably to try and let maxey get a full head of steam going to the rim - which he does.
embiid sets a lazy, borderline illegal screen around half court and then watches the rest of the game. when hartenstein blocks Maxey, Embiid is nowhere to be found to pursue the offensive rebound. he's chilling at the top of the key. Everyone else is crashing because, well, duh - the game is on the line. He's chillin', and Nick Nurse is comically asking for a jump ball.
side note - it's super awkward that in the MSG redesign they put the tunnel to the visitor's locker room near the home bench and the tunnel to the home locker room near the visitor's bench. alas.
