After two contests in New York, one that was over by the third quarter and one that came down to the final minutes, the Philadelphia 76ers trail the Knicks in their Eastern Conference Semifinals series, 2-0. Joel Embiid missed Game 2 with hip and ankle injuries and his status remains up in the air moving forward. Tyrese Maxey committed six turnovers in the latest loss and later connected the dots that he had jammed his injured pinky finger during the game, causing him additional discomfort. They
say a series doesn’t start until the road team wins, but the Sixers are certainly testing that sentiment with the overall feeling about how things are going at the moment.
Aside from the fact that Philadelphia looked to figure some things out in the close Game 2 defeat, the biggest cause for optimism going forward is injury luck swinging back slightly in the other direction. Knicks wing OG Anunoby left Game 2 late with what we later found out is a hamstring injury.
It does appear that Anunoby avoided a serious strain and various reports have mentioned him as day-to-day to perhaps out up to a week. He has a history of hamstring injuries, most recently missing three weeks earlier this season with one. The Knicks faced a similar situation two years ago in the Eastern Conference Semifinals against Indiana; OG’s hamstring injury then was a turning point in the Pacers coming back from a 2-0 deficit to win that series. Could history repeat itself here?
While next man up mentality always applies, and the Knicks certainly have better roster depth than the Sixers, there’s no denying what a huge loss Anunoby would be for New York if he misses any time. He’s unquestionably their top two-way player and someone that has earned the “16-game player” designation with how his numbers regularly improve in a postseason environment. In this current postseason, OG is averaging 21.4 points, 7.5 rebounds, 1.3 assists, 1.9 steals, 1.1 blocks and 0.5 turnovers.
He, Mikal Bridges, and Josh Hart taking on the difficult defensive assignments and generally covering a ton of ground allow the Knicks to get away with two negative defenders in Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns. Anunoby’s versatility and ability to credibly guard four positions allows head coach Mike Brown a ton of lineup malleability. I mentioned the Knicks have solid depth, but they don’t really have any similar big wings coming off the bench. They either get much smaller with more guard types receiving playing time like Deuce McBride, Landry Shamet and Jordan Clarkson. Or New York could try additional minutes with the two bigs beside each other, assuming Mitchell Robinson is back from his illness-related Game 2 absence. Either way, there’s something for the Sixers to exploit that simply isn’t there with a perfect jack-of-all-trades guy on the floor in Anunoby.
Even if it comes out that Anunoby is officially missing one or two games, I’m not going to sit here and tell you that changes everything from the Sixers’ perspective. They still have their own gigantic healthy mystery box to unravel in the form of Joel Embiid, after all. But if you’re looking for avenues Philadelphia could walk down to get back into this series, the Knicks missing the guy most critical to making everything else work would be a good place to start.
