Must-win? Well, not literally anyway, but considering how poorly the
team performed in Chicago on Tuesday, the chances of them being able to
win a Game Seven in Chicago after blowing a 3-1 series lead don't seem
spectacular. No, the team would be significantly better off winning
tonight and letting that be that. It might involve scoring 70 points (or
more!), but hey, sometimes you just need to put your head down as a
team and, uh, score 20 points a quarter.
I'm still a little too nauseated from the last game to talk about keys
to the game and who needs to do what or what have you, so instead I'll
just leave this message for our esteemed coach Doug Collins—just play
Jrue and Evan the whole way. (Well, minus some rest minutes, but you
know.) Don't play Jodie Meeks as a floor-spacer for extended stretches,
don't ride the hot hand with Lou Williams—just ride or die with The
Extraterrestrial and The Damaja. Nobody in Philly really cares all that
much about this series anyway—we'd like to win, sure, but we realize the
stakes are still fairly low at this point—but we want to see a glimpse
of what could be the future, and frankly, at this point I'd rather go
down swinging with Jrue and Evan than squeak by on the backs of 'Dre and
Sour Patch Lou. (Maybe. Toss-up.)
7:00 tip from the Wells Fargo Center. Let's win a basketball game tonight, guys—preferably with our best players. It would make everything so simple.
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