2. Brett Brown’s Personnel Decisions

Making the right lineup choices is important all the time in the NBA for a head coach. There’s added value in it during a playoff series, especially when a key player like Ben Simmons is on the sidelines.

With the Boston Celtics being a small ball oriented team with one traditional big man and four perimeter players, the Philadelphia 76ers would be best served avoiding a double-bigs lineup with Joel Embiid and Al Horford starting together.

With Gordon Hayward finding a rhythm, the Celtics’ small-ball attack is red offensively–averaging 123.0 points per game on 39.3% shooting from deep on 37.4 attempts per game at Disney World. Let’s not forget, Boston has coupled that with dynamic dribble penetration from the perimeter, too.

Placing a greater emphasis on providing minutes for athletic wing players like Matisse Thybulle and Glenn Robinson III with Joel Embiid manning the middle seems best. There is no perfect solution in Philadelphia’s situation but it does help to better match up with the Celtics’ wings.

Bringing Horford off the bench would enable him to attack a weaker position in the Celtics’ depth chart. The 76ers would be able to outmatch Boston at the spot for a full 48 minutes by staggering Embiid and Horford in that kind of way.