In retrospect, the Sixers needed to win Game 2 against the New York Knicks to have any chance of upsetting them in the Eastern Conference Semifinals.
The Sixers had the lead for most of Game 2, but they ran out of gas late in the fourth quarter with Joel Embiid sidelined (hip, ankle). Embiid returned for Game 3, but he looked nowhere near like his usual self.
The Sixers stayed in striking distance for most of the night, but the Knicks finally broke the game open in the fourth quarter and pushed the Sixers to the brink of elimination. No team in NBA history has ever overcome a 3-0 series deficit, and
with both Embiid and Tyrese Maxey nursing injuries, the Sixers aren’t likely to be the first.
Before we look ahead to perhaps their final game of the season, let’s assign some blame for the loss that effectively ended the Sixers’ season.
The Sixers’ bench scored exactly zero points through the first three quarters of Game 3. In case you missed it, Jared McCain scored 18 points in 18 minutes for the Oklahoma City Thunder in their 125-107 win over the Luka Dončić-less Los Angeles Lakers.
As a reminder, the Sixers traded McCain to the Thunder in February for the No. 22 pick in the 2026 draft and three future second-round picks. In conjunction with an Eric Gordon salary dump, it also just so happened to get them far enough under the tax that they could pull off the rest of their in-season moves, including signing Dominick Barlow and Jabari Walker to standard contracts with team options in 2026-27.
Here’s the thing: The Sixers didn’t have to duck the tax. They could have done the exact same thing with Barlow and Walker with the taxpayer mid-level exception. That would have hard-capped them at the second apron, but they were nowhere close to crossing it.
They got legitimate value for McCain, although the pressure is only ratcheting up on them to make good use of those picks. But trading him away without landing another rotation player made the Sixers worse this season.
The Sixers managed to overcome a 3-1 series deficit against the Boston Celtics in the first round of the playoffs despite their disadvantage in terms of depth. Head coach Nick Nurse trusted only six players to play consistent minutes: the five starters and Quentin Grimes.
Andre Drummond, Adem Bona and Dominick Barlow played sparingly around those six, but Maxey, VJ Edgecombe and Paul George were all routinely playing 40-plus minutes per game. That seemingly caused them to run out of gas both in Games 2 and 3, as Nurse played only Barlow, Grimes and Drummond off the bench in Game 3 before waving the white flag with two minutes left.
It’s a failure of the front office not to find a way to replace McCain at the trade deadline. Signing Cam Payne out of Europe does not count. And they’re being punished for it accordingly now.
But who do you think gave them the marching orders to duck the tax in the first place?
