TORONTO — Is it possible for a team to make a defiant, bold statement without scoring in the N.B.A.? The Philadelphia 76ers, a team that seemed vastly outgunned against the Toronto Raptors in the first game of their Eastern Conference semifinals, would like a word, and possibly a time machine, to consult the basketball gods of yesterday. “When you shrink your rotations, it’s naïve for us to think you’re going to play a game like a track meet when it’s a fistfight. It’s a grind the whole game,” Brett Brown, the coach of the Sixers, said after the game. Philadelphia won despite shooting less than 40 percent from the field, but this style of play also might be how it advances to the next round: pure survival.

Source: New York Times April 30, 2019 11:54 UTC