Philadelphia 76ers: 3 takeaways from Game 5 advance vs. Nets

1. High point total without free throws

The Sixers had one of their best offensive outings of the season in the Game 5 victory. They shot 51.0 percent from the field and were 14-of-33 from beyond the arc. The 122 points they scored were nearly seven points above their season average, and surprisingly, that number was obtained without much help from the referees.

Philly was the No. 2 team during the regular season in terms of free throw attempts per game. Granted, the team also ranked 16th in percentage from the stripe, but it was the sheer volume of looks that helped the offense rank fourth in points per game, especially when other players or shot types were struggling to find the bottom of the net.

The Sixers shot a grand total of just nine free throw attempts in the Game 5 win, hitting six of them. Normally, that type of productivity from the line spells doom for this team, but on this night, everything else was clicking.

Teams that rely on the whistle to manufacture most of their points usually tend to crumble when they fail to manifest. There’s no telling how the whistles will blow in Philly’s upcoming playoff matchups against the Raptors in round two. All players can really do is be aggressive and hope for the best.

This performance was telling, though, for a team so heavily reliant on the refs calling things in their favor. If the Sixers can continue their potency everywhere else offensively, as they did in Game 5, their production at that end will be hard to stop independent of their free throw totals.