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76ers Rumors: HC Brett Brown 'Without Internal Momentum' to Return After Loss
August 23, 2020
Changes are reportedly coming for the Philadelphia 76ers after they were swept by the Boston Celtics in the first round of the playoffs.
Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN reported the news after Boston completed its sweep with a 110-106 victory in Sunday's Game 4, noting head coach "Brett Brown is without internal momentum to return for his eighth season as coach, and a final decision could come soon."
Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports added that the expectation within coaching circles is that the Sixers will move on from Brown in the coming days.
After the sweep, Brown spoke about the defeat, telling reporters he did not "maximize" his team:
Ben Golliver @BenGolliverSixers’ Brett Brown after Celtics’ sweep: “The job of a coach is to take the team you have & maximize it. I did not do that... We talked about smash mouth, bully ball and built for the playoffs... Space became an enormous issue. You had a mismatch every time down the court.” https://t.co/mE16WzIpGe
To say this season was a disappointment for Philadelphia would be a massive understatement.
The team entered the campaign with championship aspirations with a roster that included Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons, Tobias Harris, Al Horford, Josh Richardson and others. However, it struggled with inconsistency and injuries all the way to the No. 6 seed in the Eastern Conference.
The 76ers were completely overmatched in the playoffs against Boston, especially with Simmons sidelined by an injury, and were unable to register a single win. Rather than competing with the likes of Giannis Antetokounmpo, LeBron James, Kawhi Leonard and others for a championship, they were the first team to be eliminated in the playoffs.
Harris left Game 4 after a scary fall, but the Celtics were already in full control of the series even though they were without Gordon Hayward for all but Game 1.
As for Brown, he has been the team's head coach since the start of the 2013-14 campaign and deserves some credit for guiding it through a difficult rebuild affectionately termed as Trust the Process. That process included Embiid and Simmons missing entire seasons for injuries and plenty of losses, but it appeared Philadelphia was ready to enter the upper echelon of the league the last few seasons.
Instead, it lost in the second round in 2018 and 2019 before taking a step back and losing in the first round in 2020.
Brown is 221-334 in seven seasons as Philadelphia's head coach.