Jason

That's something they've conceded all year long.

And so Joel and beads ability to credibly pop out of ball screens and hit threes would be a huge asset as well as just giving them an additional ability to attack outside of ball screen.

So for instance, elbow ISOs, post-ups things along those lines without him, it's pretty much just Paul George

post-ups and ISOs, which aren't going to be nearly as efficient as Joel Embiid post-ups and ISOs.

So again, that's just my initial take on it on the offensive end of the floor.

He's going to be a help on defense though.

I think it would dramatically downsize like Philly's aggregate foot speed on defense.

I think that could be a problem, especially against a team that's going to put them in the blender a lot.

That's going to put them into rotation a lot with driving kick attacks.

I don't like the matchup for Embiid as much against Boston on the defensive end of the floor as I do against some other teams in the league.

So again, we'll dive deeper into that concept if it gets announced that he returns.

But moving forward in this episode, I'm going to just primarily focus on the idea of him being outside of the series.

Let's start with the Sixers on offense.

One of the biggest swing factors in the series is just going to be Tyrese Maxey's ability to hit the pull-up three in pick and roll.

The Celtics run a ton of particularly deep drop coverage.

It's a big part of why they've been the best paint defense in the NBA this year.

And I'm not worried about Maxie's ability to hit floaters in, in ball screen coverages and the occasional mid range jump shot.

It's more of the pull up threes where he's been very hot and cold this year.

He actually shot in the aggregate, a pretty mediocre 34% this year on pull up threes in pick and rolls.

The one kind of wrinkle that I would add to that is handoffs as an alternative way to attack drop coverage, but file that away.