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Yikes that was a tough, tough watch on Sunday. My prior optimism about the series pretty quickly evaporated. The game was never close.

Nevertheless I will say the game felt extremely strange. The Sixers were missing shots at a comically fast rate and frankly it didn't make sense. It was frustrating and the Celtics certainly played great defense as they often do, and the Celtics also seem to have the size advantage which is problematic. But I don't know I got the feeling that the Sixers were more inexperienced and nervous for this game. Tyrese Maxey and Paul George have good playoff experience and a few other veterans have mild experience but a lot of other players haven't really tasted much playoff basketball. All in all I just felt the Celtics were way more composed. The Celtics have been making deep runs for awhile and were literally champions only two years ago.

Also, the Celtics are obviously the favorites. They are a deeper, more complete team. They're a great team. The Sixers on this roster need to create their own story and prove they belong. The Celtics are just more talented especially without Joel Embiid. Embiid is just one player, but he's a great player. The domino effect his presence adds to the team and how defenses defend the Sixers is large. I'm not sure if the Sixers would win the series with Embiid but they would be way more competitive.

But fate determined Embiid is not here. Plenty of teams get crushed in a seven game series and turnaround to look better. It's hard to imagine the Sixers shooting that badly twice in a row. Hopefully they got the jitters mostly out of them and felt the punch to the mouth they took. I say hopefully they felt the punch because if they have pride they won't get caught that hard again going forward. Not to say they won't lose again but hopefully none of the losses are as bad as Sunday was.

Meh. But yeah I'm just hoping for a better game. If the Sixers can't win the series I hope they don't get swept! If they somehow managed to force this to six games that would be impressive!

It's playoff basketball LET'S GO!!! A lot of teams would prefer being where the Sixers are right now, this has been a fun year watching this scrappy squad.

#GOSIXERS