Nick Nurse’s Lack of Adjustments Killer in Game 4 Loss

The Boston Celtics’ strategy throughout the first 3 games of the series was simple: feed the shooters and let it all work out from there.

Boston shoots more threes than almost anyone in basketball, averaging over 42 attempts from beyond the arc this season, ranking third in the NBA. Not only does the team shoot a lot of threes, but they knock down a plethora of them, too. Boston hits the third most threes in the league, proving that they are among the best shooting teams out there.

With this information, one would be foolish to think anything would change come playoff time. Not only did nothing change, but Boston played Game 1 exactly like they had all season long. Shooting just over 42 threes and making about 38% of them, the Celtics were ready to throw their same personnel and scheme out for the series against Philadelphia. After losing by 30+ points in Game 1, Nick Nurse needed to make a change with the defense for the rest of the series in order to have a chance to compete.

Now here we are, finishing Game 4 right back where we started after a 128-96 abomination of a loss.

“They just moved us around,” Tyrese Maxey said postgame, “pushed us around — offensively and defensively — just got to whatever spot they wanted to get to [with] no resistance.”

Boston knocked down a team playoff record 24 threes in the game, and Philly simply had no answers. While the offense from the 76ers most definitely lacked, Nurse not adjusting the defensive scheme to combat this three-point barrage is coaching malpractice.

From the jump, Payton Pritchard was unloading threes on the Sixers and did not even need any help from Jaylen Brown or Jayson Tatum to get the scoring going. Pritchard’s excellence from deep led the Celtics to a comfortable 34-18 advantage after one and a half changes were necessary to defend this.

These changes never occurred.

“I thought to myself we had more opportunities to maybe to do something to get some of their guys off the ball, but we didn’t,” Nurse said postgame regarding the amount of threes after Game 1 last Sunday. “We contested them, and they made a lot of tough [threes]. I thought [Vucevic] got a couple of easy ones. It was not the pick and pop that was the problem, it was just space, and we just overdid it on some of that — it will help us if we just cut that number down quite a bit.”

Why would we expect any changes in the rest of the series if Nurse’s answer to this issue is to “not overdo the space”? If Nurse was trying to say that the Sixers need to fix their spacing and not allow as many open shots, then he certainly did not change a thing.

Too often in Game 4 did we see a Celtic simply drive inside the three-point line, kick it out to the wing or corner, and result in a wide-open three for a role player. This is not rec league basketball. This is the NBA, and if this defense cannot figure out how to stop a simple drive and kick three, then the problem is much more than just the players on the court. It comes back to Nick Nurse.

His response to how things will change for the rest of the series was more about the team’s effort rather than the scheme he drew up.

“The tactical stuff isn’t going to mean anything if we’re not going to play with better energy,” Nurse said Sunday night. “Toughness, guarding, rebounding — like you don’t even know if your schemes and what you are trying to do is working [if there is no effort]. So that has to take up a big portion of what we are doing; it’s going to have to be a big mental pickup, then we can get to the scheme stuff.”

Nurse is a championship-winning coach who has an illustrious legacy, but if he wants his tenure in Philadelphia to mean something, then something big needs to change. Down 3-1 in the series, it is almost safe to say this year is a lost cause, but fans know Daryl Morey isn’t going to let go of Nurse in the offseason. Nurse will, in all likelihood, be back in Philly for next season, and if he wants to make sure he doesn’t leave a bad taste in the Philly faithful’s mouth, he needs to learn how to make adjustments. He will have a chance to do this in however many games the 76ers can stretch this series, but this is a big issue that needs serious review over the offseason.

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