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Tim BontempsESPN
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. – After probably coaching his last game with the Philadelphia 76ers, coach Brett Brown said he never got a chance to see his full potential as a coach over his seven years with the franchise due to the serious injuries suffered in his term of office have gone up
“No,” Brown said flat out when asked that question Sunday after the Sixers lost to the Boston Celtics 110-106 in the final game of a four-game sweep in the first round of the NBA playoffs.
When Brown was asked if he wanted to work out that point, he replied, “No. Thank you for asking the question.”
During Brown’s seven years in leadership, the team has dealt with many injuries, including franchising cornerstones Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid, former No. 1 pick Markelle Fultz and others. The last injury to overtake the Sixers was the loss of Simmons for the rest of the season after he required surgery earlier this month to remove a loose body from his left knee.
His absence was felt acutely against the Celtics, who took full advantage of the fact that Philadelphia was without one of the league’s best and most versatile defenders on the perimeter – led by rising star wingers Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown.
“Missing Ben will resonate for a long time, especially considering what he did to prepare himself to play in the [bubble]”Brown said.” The effort to protect the wings of the Celtics [that] you live every time you play them is that they have so many fireworks, and you really need to have a stable of potential, senior, veteran-type mentality defensive players on a bunch of really good scorers. And I’ll think about it [not having Simmons].
“Obviously, the way our season ended is disappointing. You obviously can’t put it any other way. But it was really hard to keep those wings going.”
Philadelphia had its projected start of five – Simmons, Embiid, Tobias Harris, Al Horford and Josh Richardson – for just about 20 games this season, which Brown lamented after Sunday’s loss.
However, the loss of Simmons, or even the myriad injuries that the Sixers have been dealing with all season, explains the complete lack of cohesion that the team showed throughout the season, even before the season ended due to the ongoing pandemic of coronavirus and after the league came back to play in the NBA bubble at the Walt Disney World Resort.
Richardson focused on what he thought was one of the problems after the game, blaming Brown for a lack of accountability on the roster.
“He’s a good boy,” said Richardson, who was traded from Miami to Philadelphia last week as part of a sign-and-trade deal for All-Star forward Jimmy Butler. “He’s a good man. He means well. I just think he should have some more responsibility going forward.
“I don’t think there was a lot of responsibility this season, and I think that was part of our problem.”
Last season, Embiid came out in Brown’s defense after the season was over, calling rumors of his potential death “bulls —.”
But when Embiid, on several occasions, was asked to say that Brown should remain the team coach after Sunday’s loss, he did everything but do so.
“I do not know,” said Embiid. “I’m not the GM. I do not make the decisions. All I know is that we have a great organization, a lot of great people outside of basketball.
“I never judge people based on basketball. I judge them based on how big a people are and how bad they are. [of a] people they are. And I think in the organization we have great people, from the management, owners, management, staff, coaching staff, training staff. We have a bunch of great people. “
When Embiid was asked again about Brown, he said he was a great man – but, again, did not say he would return.
“Great boy,” he said. “He’s an even better person than a coach. He cares about his players. He’s worried about people working with him. It’s out of basketball.
“No matter what happens … like I said, I do not make decisions. I do not know what will happen. I trust management and all that stuff. Like I said, he’s going to be a great friend, no matter what. . “
For his part, Brown acknowledged that he has not done a good enough job this season, specifically trying to find the right way to fit Horford and Embiid – longtime rivals in the post who became teammates after the Sixers signed Horford away from the Celtics last summer – together on the court to give them success.
“I mean, it was tough,” Brown said of the challenge of fitting Embiid and Horford together. “But that’s my job. That’s the job of an NBA coach. You have to take the team you have and maximize it and get the most out of it, and I did not do that.
“We came in and we talked about ‘smash mouth’ and ‘bully ball.’ We’re built for the playoffs. We’re big. Really all those kinds of questions equally, ‘Man, we have an enormous team.’ We have a great team.And the thing I found most challenging when playing out the season was space became an enormous problem.And effectively you had an accident at every possession in court.And the fact is, that’s the world of Joel.That’s Joel’s domain.And trying to help the team, trying to coach the team, trying to conquer that problem I feel a challenge.From a spatial issue, of a team kind of design, that was an area we needed were to do, and I don ‘I believe I did great of a job coaching that.’
When Brown was then asked if the two could work together, he said he thought they could – but then, again, he said he could have done more to help them.
“I think they can,” Brown said. “I think they can. When I admitted, I did not do a great job of coaching that side of it to project out and say that can happen. I believe it can. It needs change. It has many things needed to make it as perfect as you wish it could be. “
One player who defended Brown after the game was Harris, who said it was up to him, like the rest of the players, to take the blame for things not going as the Sixers had hoped this season. .
“When Ben went down, I thought Coach did a good job trying to get us going, got us going,” Harris said. “Keep our spirits up by game, we go one game down, two go down, so just keep the mood going.
“Before anything else I take ownership of myself and try to be a leader in this team and not be able to be successful in the playoffs. Before we went this route, ownership had to come at the end of the day from the individual, so I’m not going one way or the other. I had to look in the mirror and be better for my team and be able to lead my team in a better way. ‘
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