Three down, three to go.
The Sixers hit the halfway point of their preseason schedule Saturday night with a 139-89 loss to the Celtics at TD Garden, dropping to 1-2 in exhibition play.
Jared McCain was the Sixers’ top producer, recording 20 points on 9-for-21 shooting, three assists, three rebounds and three steals.
The Sixers will end their three-game road trip Monday by facing the Hawks in Atlanta. Here are observations on their blowout defeat in Boston:
Celtics with massive edge over youthful Sixers
Sixers head coach Nick Nurse had a reasonable, conservative approach on the second night of a preseason back-to-back, giving most of his veteran players the game off.
That meant Guerschon Yabusele started at center against his former team and opened the night next to Jeff Dowtin Jr., McCain, Ricky Council IV and KJ Martin.
The matchup wasn’t close to even. Celtics center Luke Kornet racked up 11 points in the first six minutes and Boston took a 40-18 lead on a Derrick White three-pointer just before the first-quarter buzzer. The Celtics had giant advantages almost everywhere you looked — size, experience, All-Star talent. In under 16 minutes, Boston’s lead was 26 points.
It didn’t help that the Sixers missed several wide-open jumpers and began 0 for 9 from three-point range as a team. Two-way contract player Lester Quinones finally broke the ice late in the first quarter.
McCain’s game inside the arc
McCain snagged a strong defensive rebound in the first quarter and then sprinted ahead in search of a coast-to-coast layup. Jaylen Brown’s chase-down block attempt forced him to miss.
The 20-year-old shot just 2 for 8 from the floor in the first period, though both of his makes were impressive. He converted a crafty layup around Kornet and made a tricky left-handed scoop shot.
Especially on a team with three All-Stars in Tyrese Maxey, Paul George and Joel Embiid, McCain may very well do much of his scoring behind the three-point line early in his NBA career. Still, it appears worth continuing to work at finding slivers of space on his drives and honing his game around 6 to 12 feet from the rim.
As a 6-foot-3 rookie, he’s figuring out the balance between being an attacking, creative player inside the arc and adapting to the challenges of NBA size and athleticism. This preseason, he hasn’t been short on self-belief; McCain went right at an All-Defensive guard in White and scored an and-one layup on him. He narrowly missed a big dunk in the fourth quarter, too.
McCain assisted Yabusele on back-to-back threes in the second quarter. He’s shown an innate feel for using his body in the pick-and-roll and hitting teammates in rhythm on pops and rolls.
The Duke product’s preseason three-point numbers dipped a bit with a 1-for-8 outing. Through three exhibition games, he’s 7 for 20 from long distance.
Nothing doing yet for Martin beyond the arc
Martin’s athletic abilities popped whenever he had the chance to go downhill.
He scored the Sixers’ first points out of a pick-and-roll with Dowtin. Later, he slammed home a fast-break lob from Council.
Martin played 28 minutes and posted nine points on 4-for-7 shooting, four rebounds and two assists. He only tried one three-point shot Saturday night, missing a first-quarter jumper from the right corner.
If he could drain a few threes before the preseason ends, Martin’s case for rotation minutes would presumably improve. While the Sixers want everyone to play to their strengths, Nurse has spoken positively about Martin’s summer work with a shooting coach. Any in-game success during the preseason would be significant.
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