Game 5 against Raptors may be most important of Brett Brown’s career

With the series tied 2-2, Tuesday could be the biggest game of Brett Brown’s career with the Philadelphia 76ers.

Two days ago, the Philadelphia 76ers were on the verge of taking a commanding 3-1 lead over the Toronto Raptors in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference semifinals before it all fell apart, and they would go on to lose 101-96.

Now, the Sixers face the difficult task of heading back to Toronto for Game 5 Tuesday night, as they look to avoid falling behind 3-2 in the series since this would mean they would be facing elimination later this week when heading back to Philadelphia.

From Joel Embiid to Ben Simmons, numerous members of the Sixers face heavy pressure to step up in the biggest way possible on Tuesday to put the team in the best position possible to earn what will most likely have to be a hard-fought win over the Raptors.

However, the argument can be made that no one will be facing as much pressure as head coach Brett Brown since the argument can be made that Game 5 is the biggest contest of his coaching career since coming to Philadelphia.

Over the years, it’s been difficult to describe how most Sixers fans truly feel about Brown since the head coach receives heavy praise one night when the team pulls off a big win, only to see them turn against him later on when Philadelphia comes up short.

Just look at this series with the Raptors, and how Sixers fans were trying to claim that Brown was far from the answer after an embarrassing 108-95 Game 1 loss to the Raptors, only to rightfully reward him with all of the credit in the world a few days later after an impressive Game 2 win.

Clearly, Philadelphia knew they would have their hands full against Toronto since the team earned the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference for a reason, but it’s still difficult to get over what took place Sunday afternoon when they missed out on what would have been a golden opportunity.

Instead of facing less pressure Tuesday night since another loss would still have resulted in them being up in the series, Brown and the Sixers face the additional pressure of falling behind in the series once again.

Only this time around, a loss in Game 5 would mean that Thursday’s game would consist of Philadelphia battling for their playoff lives since if they were to lose Game 6 as well, their season would officially be over.

Between coming up short last year in the semifinals after being embarrassed by the Boston Celtics to the high expectations this season with key acquisitions such as Jimmy Butler and Tobias Harris, if this scenario were to happen, one can only imagine the backlash Brown would receive.

So while the Sixers were frustrated over what took place on Sunday, one can only imagine the kind of pressure Brown and company are feeling before Tuesday’s Game 5, because in a way, this could arguably be viewed as the biggest game of the head coach’s career.