NEW YORK — In their 102-97 victory Thursday night, a victory that gave them a three-games-to-none lead in their first-round series against the Brooklyn Nets, the 76ers started a forward who played 29 minutes and took just three shots. One was a layup, which he made, but he hesitated on the other two. They were 3-pointers, and the forward wasn’t sure at first if he wanted to take them. He shuffled his feet and pump-faked a little, and it looked awkward, but he was open, so he took the shots. He missed them. The Sixers did not run any offensive sets or plays for this forward in the game’s closing minutes, either, because … well, why would they? When his team is in the closing minutes of a big game and needs someone to create a shot, he is not the kind of player who really wants the ball in his hands or should have the ball in his hands.
This all might sound familiar, like nothing about the Sixers is different this postseason … when everything might yet be. You can read a box score, without watching the corresponding game, and wonder what value, if any, the Sixers derive from having P.J. Tucker in their lineup. You can read the above paragraph, pick up on the manipulative manner in which it has been written, and say to yourself, Great. He’s making another Ben Simmons reference. And you’d be right. Which gets to the whole point.
If Simmons’ presence was, by the end of his time with the Sixers, a psychological drag on the entire team — and it was — Tucker’s has the opposite effect. He lends them a toughness, in body and mind and spirit, that they had lacked for too long. Yes, he had just three points Thursday. But he had eight rebounds — four, including two offensive boards, in the game’s final four minutes — and four assists, and on a night when Joel Embiid should have been ejected for kicking Nic Claxton in the manhood and James Harden and Claxton were ejected and the entire 48 minutes was closer to playoff hockey than playoff basketball, the Sixers needed every ounce of Tucker’s smarts and fortitude.
“P.J. Tucker won the game for us,” coach Doc Rivers said.
Game 3 was the latest example of why Embiid mentioned Tucker by name in the immediate aftermath of the Sixers’ six-game loss to the Miami Heat in last year’s second round. Tucker had been maddeningly effective for the Heat in that series, extending possessions with offensive rebounds, doing the little things — all the stuff that the Sixers, year after year, failed to do at this time of year.
“That’s why I said his name,” Embiid said. “I didn’t say, ‘Go get P.J. Tucker.’ I said we needed someone like that.”
So Morey did, promising to pay $33 million over a three-year contract for a 37-year-old who had never averaged more than 9.5 points in any of his 12 NBA seasons. It was a steep but necessary price for the kinds of contributions that are most valuable when a team is on the road in the playoffs and an opponent with nothing to lose is mucking up the game, as the Nets did Thursday.
“I love that,” Tucker said. “Those are my favorite kinds of games, cause the refs start letting a little more go and it gets a little chippy. I told Joel before we started the playoffs, these types of games are the ones you remember if you get to where you want to be — those games where you shoot 40 percent and 60 from the free-throw [line] and nobody can hit a three. Those are the ones where you know you’ve grown as a team, where you do whatever it takes that night to get the win. These are the kinds of games that build a foundation of being able to win. And then, when you’re rolling, it’s hard to beat you.”
The Sixers weren’t rolling Thursday. Until his timely block of Spencer Dinwiddie’s drive late in the game, Embiid was generally terrible all night, falling to the floor so frequently that he looked like a giraffe on ice skates. Harden was gone before the fourth quarter began. The Nets don’t have a superstar on their roster — Mikal Bridges will be one, but he’s not there yet — and they were going toe-to-toe with the Sixers just by being tougher than they were, until Tucker put an end to all that with his tenaciousness.
“They’re not just going to sit back and let Joel destroy you for 50 every night,” he said. “You’ve got to make somebody else beat you. There’s no way you can let the MVP play one on one and just kill. You’ve got to throw different defenses at him. Doubles, triples, you’ve got to do everything to get the ball out of his hands. Our job is to make that tough. ‘OK, if you want to do that now, I’m going to offensive rebound the ball every single time. I’m going to get open shots for guys every single time. I’m going to wear you down, make you keep working all game until the end.’ ”
For once, the Sixers have a guy who does that. A guy who wears down the other team, instead of wearing out his welcome with them. At Barclays Center on Thursday night, it made all the difference.
