Just before Game 2 between the Knicks and Philadelphia 76ers took off at Madison Square Garden on Monday, Buddy Hield, a backup Sixers guard, sat at his locker. Hield was not in the mood for media interviews — not while preparing for the second game of a seven-game first-round playoff series. But he managed to utter one word while slightly hunched over, holding socks in one hand and his phone in the other, his eyes fixed on the projected film of the opponent he was about to face. “Adjust.”
In the playoffs, adjustments are everything. The right adjustment can swing an entire series in a team’s favor, regardless of any perceived talent difference between the two teams. And the wrong adjustment? Well, the wrong adjustment can send a team into a downward spiral and potentially cost them the series or even their head coach their job.
Adjustments will be abundant in this chess match between two teams with injured stars and high playoff aspirations. The Knicks are playing in this playoff series without Julius Randle, a three-time All-Star who sustained a season-ending dislocated right shoulder in January. As for the 76ers, both All-Stars Joel Embiid (meniscus) and Tyrese Maxey (illness) were questionable and listed as game-time decisions before both decided to play through the setbacks in Game 2.
“I mean, listen: I think that you definitely get into the series after Game 1,” said Sixers head coach Nick Nurse. “You see a lot of the things that are happening. You can only guess what the coverages will be, what the matchups are gonna be, and all that kind of stuff. So you certainly have a lot of information heading into the next game about where you’re gonna move your pieces, if there’s any matchups you want to change, any schemes you want to change, all that kind of stuff.”
“You just kind of move the guesses to some more of the factual information you’ve been presented, and then see how that affects what you’re gonna do the next game.”
Isaiah Hartenstein, who was about 90 seconds away from where Hield had uttered the word “adjust,” was also at his locker. Hartenstein chuckled. This was a question for the head coach, not a player. The playoffs involve not just making adjustments but also anticipating your opponent’s moves and having a strategy ready to counter them.
For head coach Tom Thibodeau, much of the work leading into this series had been done long before the Knicks knew who the victor of the Play-In Tournament matchup between the 76ers and Miami Heat on Wednesday would be. As the Sixers and Heat battled it out to earn the right to play the Knicks in the first round, Thibodeau’s staff spent their time finding similarities between the two potential opponents in order to gain a head start for Game 1.
“You do it all year long, so you don’t have to adjust,” Thibodeau said ahead of tipoff on Monday. “So, same thing you do with your preparation, you don’t change. You analyze the game that you did well, the things you have to improve upon and get ready for the next one.”
Under Thibodeau, the Knicks have established their foundational principles: relentless defense, a high volume of three-pointers, crashing the boards, and protecting the ball. They believe they can withstand either an off shooting night for themselves or a furious scoring run by their opponents if they can do these four things.
“We come in, we watch film. We have our principles of how we play,” Hartenstein said pregame. “An adjustment is always going to be made, but at the end of the day, we’ve got to stick to our principles and just kind of get better as a team at what we want to do.”
Both teams had plenty of adjustments to make moving forward after Game 1. The Knicks, for example, were unable to contain Tyrese Maxey’s superior speed, which led to his impressive 33-point performance in Game 1. The Sixers succeeded in limiting Jalen Brunson’s effectiveness, who made only 8 of 26 shots from the field for 22 points — but in doing so, they created space for Josh Hart, who hit four three-pointers, including three in the fourth quarter, which ultimately helped the Sixers secure the victory. The Knicks also benefited from strong performances from Deuce McBride, Bojan Bogdanovic, and Mitchell Robinson, who combined for 42 points off the bench in Game 1, while the Sixers received minimal contributions from players other than Embiid and Maxey.
In Game 1, Hield failed to score and missed both of his shots in 11 minutes off the bench for the Sixers. The Sixers acquired him specifically to provide scoring power off the bench in playoff matchups like this one. That’s why he’s muttering one word at his locker — “adjust” — and why every series has unforeseen developments, regardless of who’s playing on any given night.
