Celtics' Brad Stevens on 76ers: 'I Don't Know If There's a More Talented Team'
The Boston Celtics open their 2019-20 season against the Philadelphia 76ers on Wednesday night, and head coach Brad Stevens had high praise for the team's first opponent.
"I don't know if there's a more talented team in the NBA," he said Tuesday, per Jay King of The Athletic.
There's little doubt that the Sixers are loaded with talent.
Joel Embiid is arguably the best two-way center in the NBA and a legitimate MVP candidate this season. Ben Simmons is a 6'10" point guard with elite vision and fantastic defensive versatility who is a jumper away from being one of the league's transcendent stars. Celtics fans are well acquainted with Al Horford's leadership, defensive impact and overall savvy. Tobias Harris gets buckets. Josh Richardson is one of the game's more underrated two-way wings.
While there are more questions about the team's depth, rookie Matisse Thybulle has shown in the preseason the upside to potentially be the sort of defensive disruptor on the wing the team lost in Robert Covington last season when he was traded to the Minnesota Timberwolves in the Jimmy Butler deal.
Yes, there are questions about the offensive fit in Philly. Who will take the offensive lead in clutch situations with Butler gone? How will they replace the impact JJ Redick had on the offense, sprinting around screens and hitting off-balance threes?
Butler and Redick were two huge pieces of Philly's offense last season. And while the Sixers have plenty of talent on that end, they don't have the players necessarily equipped to handle those specific roles.
That may be mitigated by the team's defense, however. The Sixers are huge across the board, and players like Embiid, Horford, Simmonos, Richardson and Thybulle are all excellent defenders (or in Thybulle's case, appear primed to be an excellent defender). Scoring on Philly should be no easy task.
But the Celtics are no slouches themselves. While the losses of players like Kyrie Irving, Al Horford and Marcus Morris will hurt, the Celtics still have a promising core built around Kemba Walker, Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Gordon Hayward and Marcus Smart.
The Celtics are a playoff team, especially in the top-heavy East. The question is whether they can hang with the presumed favorites in the conference like Philly and Milwaukee. Against Philadelphia, in particular, the question is who will slow down Embiid.
In the past, Horford and Aron Baynes did an incredible job battling the big man. It's hard to imagine Enes Kanter, Daniel Theis and Robert Williams having anywhere near the same impact.
How they fare on Wednesday night will be one of the primary storylines to follow as these two long-time rivals open another season against one another.
