The Ringer NBA Show - A Sad, Somber Emergency Pod for Raptors-Sixers Game 5 | The Ringer NBA Show

Episode Date: May 8, 2019

Two of our resident Philadelphia 76ers fans commiserate over the Sixers’ embarrassing loss to the Toronto Raptors in Game 5. Hosts: John Gonzalez, Michael Baumann Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello darkness, my old friend. I've come to talk with you again. Welcome to, and I use this term very loosely, a special edition of the Ringer NBA show, instant reactions from Game 5 of Sixers, Raptors. I'm your host John Gonzalez. Isaac Lee is here, per usual, and I am joined by staff writer extraordinaire,

host of the Ringer MLB show. And my Philly brother, Michael Bauman, who is doing this both under duress and protest, the Sixers and Raptors have any. even wrapped up, Baumann. We decided to start the pod early because what a shit show. Yeah, this edition of the Ringer NBA show is brought to you by looking at this can right now, Shorts Brewing Company of Elk Rapids, Michigan. Yeah, that's about right. I was going to say bleach. This episode of the show is brought to you by bleach. If you're a Sixers fan, drink bleach.

Not good for the Sixers gang. Like, I thought Baumann that the series was pretty much decided in game four. I thought it was right there for the Sixers. They had a chance to take a commanding three one lead. Literally if Tobias Harris hits two more threes, they're up three-one. They go back to Toronto. I think maybe the proceedings are a little bit different, and it didn't go that way, and then they go to Toronto, and it could

not have gone worse from the very beginning, especially and including the fact that Joe Ellen Beat and Ben Simmons were alternately terrible and invisible. They combined four, as we're recording this, who knows? They're not coming back in. They're not going to come back in, but if they wanted to come back in, they could have some more turnovers. 13 turnovers,

Alman. It's perfect. I don't think I was as pessimistic as you were after game four. The series was still tied at that point, and we had had one blowout on each side and two extremely close intense games in which Embed was on the verge of shitting his pants. And I don't know that I was optimistic at the time, but suffice it to say, I would not have agreed to do this podcast if I saw this coming. Should we get the pro Toronto, give them their due stuff?

of the way before we bury the Sixers? You want to do that first? You don't want to do that first. We're going to do that first. We're going to do that first because it needs like just a very quick cursory, hey, the Raptors were good while the Sixers were not. Kauai Leonard has been a monster all series long. This wasn't even a monster game for him. This was just like a pretty good Kauai game where he goes for a double double points and rebounds, had a couple assists, didn't even hit a three-pointer. And yet, despite not getting Supernova Kauai Leonard, they got a pretty good effort from Pascal Seacum, all five. five starters scored in double figures.

The bench looked better than it had looked. Abaka took a giant elbow to his head from his teammate and, you know, still stayed out there. But from the beginning, the Raptors looked really good and the Sixers didn't. So congrats to the Raptors fan. This isn't exactly a Raptors podcast. If you live in Canada, good for you. Congratulations. Yeah.

And the Sixers turn the ball over and didn't shoot that well and still are not shooting that well and are still turning the ball over. So the Raptors, I think, do deserve a lot of. of credit for holding the Sixers down on the defense event. Kyle Lowry stepped up in a way he didn't early in the season. But, you know, also the Maple Leafs choked and Mitch Martin are super overrated. So I'm just looking for whatever I can. Yeah, they didn't have you and I do this to make it a Raptors pod.

So for the rest of however long this lasts, we're just going to do a little 76ers talk. As Isaac will tell you, it's never happened before on the NBA show, Ringer Feed. This is not what Sixers fans anticipated when they went out and got Harris and Butler, and they put together this starting five, and it was supposed to be the best starting five, aside from the Golden State Warriors. It wasn't supposed to be another second round out. It definitely wasn't supposed to be another second round out the way that it's looking right now. And I think, like, all the traces back to this weird situation with Joelle and Bede,

because as I wrote extensively in the first round, and this is an obvious point, but it's super true. Only when he's healthy and right, can they achieve even something like remotely resembling what their best game is. And when he's not healthy and right, which he hasn't been in this series,

all of a sudden the wheels come off. And Charks wrote about that same thing too. And in this whole situation has just been so strange. Like, first it was the knee tendonitis. And then in game two, he had gastroenteritis. And then the last game,

and in game five, he had some sort of sickness where he wasn't sleeping. And then they were calling it upper respiratory infection, and he was sort of moping into the arena before the game tonight. And I don't know what the hell is going on with him. I don't know if it's the medical staff's fault or if it's his fault for not taking care of himself, but something is wrong here, and it has, it looks like, brought the season to an end. So I want to say a couple things about that.

I mean, the first thing is whatever happens between this and Zeyer Smith and all the other weird stuff that's gone on. You know, first I'll say, like, this series isn't over. You've been around long enough to remember everybody freaking out after they dropped game one to Brooklyn. They're going home on Thursday, and they've won in Toronto already. So, like, this isn't... Historically, the odds are heavily stacked against them.

At this point, they're probably going to lose the series, but let's save the post-mortem until after they've actually lost and see how they've done it. The next thing I was going to say is they need to just start washing their fucking hands on that team. I mean, it's just unreal the weird medical stuff that's happened. Oh, you meant literally. At first, I thought you were doing some sort of figurative commentary on how they need to wash their hands with something. But you mean quite literally. I touched a lot of weird Philadelphia handrails, and I don't get sick that much because I know to wash my hands before I touch my face.

My buddy Flacco tells a hilarious story about the vet when his dad brought him to the vet back in the day and he went to go wash his hands in the sink and his dad grabbed him real quick and pulled them away because there was a guy in another sink next to him taking a piss and he's like buddy you don't got to wash your hands all the time and just whisked him out of there and now your buddy's the center for the sixers and he's he is now yes the way i can tell you used to work for the philadelphia inquirer is the philadelphia team's getting beat and the first thing that you do is well what's wrong with the best player on the team i mean i'm not saying that Embed can't take better care of himself.

And maybe like this needed to happen for him to go full Huey Lewis in the news and work out every day and watch what he eats. But there's a thing going around with the Sixers plus minus the series. And the guys in the negative, you know, Embed's a plus 40 and the other starters are all in the negative, at least by a little bit. To a certain extent, like this is the bargain that we made, that we got the best player, you know, we. The Sixers got the best player that they've had since Iverson.

and this injury concern was the reason he was around at three in the draft, and they're not building around Jabari Parker right now. So I would take that bargain, take the idea that there could be a healthy Embed at some point down the line and go to war with that guy, who we saw less than a week ago. So I don't know. Yeah, no, but that's what I'm saying. Like, yes, I agree with you that he is still their best player. Yes, I agree with you that there are plenty of nits to pick beyond Embed here.

And if we're really focusing on, like, how the series turned, you could point fingers, in a number of different directions that don't land on Joelle Ambide. I'm saying, though, my point to, you know, revert back to my Philadelphia Inquirer columnist days. It's simply like the ceiling isn't high without him, right? Unless he's healthy and right, it's just like, you're not going anywhere. So, and it's just sort of disappointing because it did seem after they win those two consecutive games at the beginning of the series and they go up to one and they have a game at home and I'm thinking to myself, my God, like they win this game four, they're going to win the series. And instead it just felt like a completely, completely turned. I really felt like game four was the complete series.

But all right, let's put him beat off to the side for a second. And let's just go through this here. Ben Simmons, Brett has put him on now in two consecutive series, ostensibly the best player on the other team. And that's fine. And he's done his capable best on the defensive end. Offensively, you and I were slacking with Isaac during this game. Offensively, he has been an absolute and complete zero.

Not only can he not shoot, but he's also had trouble finishing at the rim. I mean, he took five shots in this game, five. Yeah, that's the thing. Like, I think the Ben Simmons needs a jump shot thing. Like, obviously it would be nice if he was at least, like, Janus is a shitty three-point shooter, but people at least have to guard him. Like, if he could at least get to shitty three-point shooting,

then it would just completely change the dynamic of the way the team's constructed in the offense, and I concede all of that. He could still be an incredibly, he's just so athletic and so smart that he can get to the, rim, essentially whenever he wants. But once he gets there, like, for the level of body control and touch that he has, and Embed does this, too, and that's frustrating to me as well is just the amount of layups that just don't even come close to going in that clank off the backboard, it's mystifying

to me, that you can be that big, that strong, that skilled, and just not finish better. And so that's, it's lost in a sea of frustrations tonight. we've seen him step up at times this playoffs compared to just disappearing and getting flustered against Boston last year. The job he's done on Kauai Leonard defensively this series is huge. And if he's just that level of defensive stopper

and you've got Embed and three other guys who can score on the court, then it's not ideal that he's not really turning up at the offensive end, but you can live with it. Can you though? Yeah, I think so. No, I'm not sure that you can because you could pick pretty much any defender or anywhere right now,

and I'm not sure how well they'd be able to defend Kauai because he's been that good. But I think you need something out of Ben Simmons who's supposed to be your 1A guy, not just right now, but for the foreseeable future. And I have serious concerns after the last two post seasons about what kind of offensive game this guy has in critical situations when things actually matter, and it's not just like a regular season, game 43 in Memphis. This is something where, like, you need him to show out. and instead he's been completely invisible.

And I realize that part of that is how Brett has deployed him. But that's also been out of necessity. Like, Brett, wisely for all the cracks and knocks that he has taken, and I just wrote about this for the ringer. Like, I think that a lot of the criticism of his coaching has been unfair. And I think that people don't realize what they're criticizing him for. He necessarily took the ball out of Ben Simmons's hands and gave it to Jimmy Butler and was deploying Ben Simmons in a different way because I think he realized,

oh, shit, yeah, we're probably not going to be able to get much from Ben Simmons. So we better shift the focus of the office. office and run more pick and roll with Jimmy and Embed and have Tobias pick it up a little bit more and try to run JJ off a pin downs. But yeah, I think you have to get something out of Ben Simmons. Otherwise, what are we talking about here? I'm not saying it's okay for him to take five shots a really pivotal playoff game. Like, he absolutely disappeared. There's a middle ground between everything's going to be okay. I think he does need to grow. And he probably will. This is only a second season in the league. The game is just wrapped, by the way. The Raptors win.

by an incalculable score. I can't even do the math. All I know that is, it's the biggest. 36. Yeah, 36, but it's the biggest win in the playoffs in Raptors history. So good for the Raptors, I suppose. Not so good for Philadelphia, 76ers. It's pretty wild that this is a bigger scoring margin than what?

That must be like seven or eight other games in the history of the franchise. Seven or eight other games. Good for them. Not a good game for JJ. When JJ's shot isn't falling, it becomes a difficult spot for them. Tobias Harris had a better game. he hasn't had a terrific series. Certainly game four was a bad game for him.

Tonight was a better game for him. But really, honestly, if you're going to say to me, who's been the most consistent player in the entire series for the Sixers, it's been Jimmy. Yeah. And he's the guy who's fit-eye question from the most... I mean, I've done that on this podcast before question is his fit with the team. I worried about him from a chemistry perspective,

and he's been a lifesaver throughout the playoffs. I mean, since he heated up and kept them in game one against Brooklyn. Yeah, Tobias has been disappointing. I thought they gave up a lot to get him and Boba and Mike Scott, and I thought it was defensible at the time because he just seemed like the perfect fifth guy to plug into that starting lineup.

But when the shot's not falling, we've seen what happens in the past couple games. And he was good, like he was, I don't know, probably the best player out of the four big starters for the first half, but by the end of the second quarter, they were behind by so much, didn't really matter. The only person on the internet,

entire team who shot more than two free throws this evening was Jimmy Butler. He shot 11, everybody else maximum of two. They haven't gotten the line. They weren't hitting their three pointers. They turned the ball over an absolute indefensible ton. And this just felt like, and I know we're really hyper-focused on the Sixers because, you know, that's sort of our default position, you and I. But it felt like the Raptors were playing fine. The Raptors were playing well. It didn't feel like a momentous Raptors game so much as it felt like just a really awful one for the Sixers. So again, apologies to Raptors fans who are probably pretty pissed off that it's most of this podcast is mostly focused on the 76ers.

But I just feel like it was more of a Sixers failure. Just like they nobody showed up. Yeah, I agree. And there's, I think it might have been more of a pedestrian game. I mean, pedestrian for is a relative term with Kauai. But for him as opposed to the rest of the supporting Kaz. Like that's what sunk Toronto in games too. and three and Gasol shot four or six, three of five from three.

Lowry had 19 points. Standing Green had a couple big misses from, but wow, I can't believe, I remember him missing two, three-pointers and those are the only two three-pointers. Yeah, he made five of seven. Jesus. It just, I don't know, man. This is the Raptors team I was scared of coming in. Me too, me too.

With a more balanced scoring attack because they could live with Kauai just tearing everything up if the other four guys in that starting lineup sort of disappeared and they didn't get anything out of the bench, and that's either won games two and three. And the opposite has happened tonight. I am on a plane in the morning to Philadelphia for game six. How do you think it's going to be there? Good? Everybody's going to be in a good mood? Um, I don't know. Isaac, how was Slack tonight? Slack tonight was by far the most depressing place that I've ever seen on the internet, frankly, it was astounding, absolutely unbelievable that the level of despair and dejection and utter lack of hope. Yeah, that's a,

Right. Is this the first time you've been on the internet in a place with more Philadelphians and non-Philadelphians? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. That's why it was so disconcerting, I imagine, because this is just what we're like all the time. This is how it goes. This is how it goes.

I can't believe, I mean, frankly, like, not to get either of us fired right now, but between them making us do this podcast post this game and then putting me on a plane to fly into what is basically a war zone to watch Game 6, I feel like this is cruel and unusual punishment by the brass. Could I have said no? Isaac, when you asked me if I wanted to do this? Can I just not get on the plane? What do you think happens?

Isaac, you have power at the office. Can you get me to not go? I don't think that's possible. Baumann, if you said no before the game, that would have been unrealistic. I think if we had started this podcast like right now, right after the game has ended, I think I would give you a pass. Well, you should find Tyler Tides' phone number between now and Thursday if you feel like doing this again. I think that would be the end of the Ringer NBA show feed if Times came on right now. So shouts to Times, but I'm glad he's decompressing somewhere, venting all of his frustration.

All right, before I let you go, because you have many things to do, and I have many beers to drink, what do you think the chances are that I am after being on a plane to Philadelphia for game six, that I am then on a plane to Toronto for game seven? I'd say better than even. Better than even. Yeah. Where did this optimism come? from it's not optimism i mean the series has been back and forth it's just happened to go way back in

one direction and way forth in the other direction a couple times it's been pretty close like three of the individual games haven't been very close but we've seen i don't know three different raptors teams show up and four different sixers teams show up so going back home i mean obviously the sixers aren't going to be this listless in game six it almost literally could not have gone any worse So, you know, I'm not making any guarantees about what happens when you go to Toronto. Like, they're just going to make, I mean, this is the other thing. I had come to terms with the Sixers getting swept after game one. Like, I went through the whole thing and made my peace with it.

And then they made me hope again. And that's- That was your mistake. That is the true evil of Philadelphia Sports Phantom. So what's going to happen? They're not going to let you off easy by losing in game six. They're going to make you go to a fucking foreign country and work for, what is it, Saturday? Game 7 Saturday?

Sunday. Sunday, they're going to make you work the entire weekend abroad. And then they're going to lose. Yeah. They're going to make me go to Canada. I mean, who wants that? Nobody wants that. Even people who live in Canada don't want that.

I hear Toronto's actually very nice. I've heard that too. We'll find out. All right. So congratulations to Toronto. Michael Baumann listened to him on the Ringer MLB show. As a public service announcement for all of you who listen to Heat Check on Mondays, we do hockey now.

more basketball. I'm excited about this. Yeah, it's going to be great. Isaac Lee, thanks for producing. Michael Bauman, thanks for co-hosting. I'm John Gonzalez. Thanks for listening, I guess, gang. Bye.