March 16, 2022
The Sixers gave away another big lead, but crunch-time execution saved them from defeat in their 118-114 victory over Cleveland. Joel Embiid was the hero once again, putting up an absurd line of 35 points, 17 rebounds, and five assists.
Here's what I saw.
• Birthday boy Joel Embiid was not a lock to play in this one, with his availability in question up until his pregame warmup in Cleveland. He made everyone forget about the back soreness rather quickly, coming out of the starting block in rare jump-shooting form against a Cleveland frontline missing All-Star Jarrett Allen. 13 points, eight rebounds, and two assists in the first quarter later, Philadelphia was off to the races. Remember how people used to say Jahlil Okafor "rolled out of bed" and put up 20-10? Embiid had one of those lines by halftime, tearing Cleveland up to clinch the season series for the Sixers.
As Nikola Jokic learned up close on Monday night, it becomes very difficult to deal with Embiid when he has the shot working. After hitting early jumpers, each Embiid feint had Cleveland defenders jumping all over the place. Poor Evan Mobley saw Embiid coming downhill in a pick-and-roll with James Harden, jumped right past Embiid when he motioned toward the rim, and Embiid simply took one dribble and went right past him, dunking the ball with nobody there to contest it.
It would only get worse for Cleveland from there. There were some clunky, awkward possessions stemming from Embiid flying solo on some possessions, which he had every right to do when you consider the heater he was on. But even with the Cavs swarming and the clock ticking down, the big guy was able to pull it out of the fire at the last moment, leaving his opponent to shrug their shoulders and pull the ball out of the net.
Joel Embiid absolutely UNGUARDABLE 😳 pic.twitter.com/E0BNER3WFm
— NBA on ESPN (@ESPNNBA) March 17, 2022
Relying on Embiid in crunch time has not always been the winning path for Philly, because winning through the post is tough, and the changes to their roster have made it a bit easier to do so lately, including on Wednesday night. With Embiid getting deep position and sealing his man, or Embiid rolling to the rim with space in front of him, he looked the part of a closer, scoring some big buckets in the final few minutes of this one.
It's a damn good thing Embiid was able to suit up for this one, because this group clearly does not have enough to look good and win without him on the floor. They needed every bit of another masterpiece to score a tight road victory. The story is the same as it ever was.
• Tyrese Maxey wasted very little movement and time in Wednesday night's win over Cleveland, whether he was attacking in the halfcourt or transition, on-ball or off-ball. The youngster has been in something of a shooting slump lately — or perhaps he was just off-the-charts good for so long that any regression feels worse than it really is — and he had a big performance on the road to help deliver this victory.
Though he came up as an off-guard and played off-the-ball a decent amount at Kentucky, his development as a catch-and-shoot player has been nothing short of spectacular. Teams have begun to show him respect from deep, and few players in the league are better equipped to punish indecisive closeouts than Maxey, whose blow-by speed is up there with anyone. For the second straight game, he punched one at the rim after blowing by a defender at the three-point line, rising quicker than most people would expect for two points at the hoop.
• Tobias Harris seems to have found his footing within the Embiid/Harden version of the Sixers, and that is a big development for Philly if it holds up the rest of the way. Sure, his efficiency is up and down night to night, and as Doc Rivers has pointed out, there are nights when he's only going to make a few shots as a result of the offense skewing toward their stars. But he has been a quicker decision-maker, a more willing shooter, and looks at home in his role in a way he did not previously.
Since Harden has come to town, Harden has created a bushel of open catch-and-shoot threes for Harris and the rest of Philadelphia's roster, and No. 12 has finally started to take advantage of those opportunities. Simply seeing him get those shots up in the first place is a positive indicator, and the rest of his game has flowed out of that three-point aggression. When Harris decides to tuck the ball and drive instead of shooting, he has done that with more purpose, too, getting all the way to the rim on possessions where he might have been stuck in no man's land in the past.
I'm pretty dubious of Harris' chances against a lot of the guys he'll likely have to guard in the playoffs, but I'd argue he's actually sort of underrated when he gets switched onto bigger players (something we've seen him do for long stretches of a playoff series, in fact). He has trouble when he needs to match speed and lateral quickness, but he will hold his ground in the post and (mostly) fight for territory when he's directly involved in actions. Off-ball stuff is a different story, but you have to pick your battles.
• My snap reaction watching the Sixers right now is that they are a team that looks like an offseason of pretty considerable tinkering away from competing for a title. Their best has looked insanely good, with Embiid and Harden simply ripping defenses to shreds when they have it going. But teams have found it fairly easy to throw a counterpunch against this group, in part because they lack the roster to be a tough defensive team.
It's an oversimplification to say teams can beat up on them by playing harder than them, but it's probably more accurate to say that they can't meet the level of athleticism and physicality of a lot of playoff teams. The top-end burst isn't there for most of these guys, and they're not trading a lack of speed for size or strength, either. They're a finesse-heavy team, and when the route one option isn't working, things go south in a hurry.
To fix that problem, the Sixers may very well have to move some of the guys who are actually positive contributors, reshaping the roster in a way that fills in the holes better between Embiid and Harden. That may end up being a moot point if Harden's scoring issues continue, but that's a story for another day.
In any case, this game was helter-skelter in the second half and that played to the advantage of Cleveland.
• There can't be a player who goes from "impact guy" to "completely unplayable" as frequently and/or as quickly as Matisse Thybulle. A game starts and you simply have no idea whether he's going to be an absolute terror for your team or, well, an absolute terror for your team.
Thybulle's big issue to open the game was his inability to finish at the basket, which tends to be a smaller concern compared to his lack of shooting or ball-handling from the perimeter. But there are some shades of Ben Simmons' problem in Thybulle, even if those are for different reasons. When Thybulle isn't going up to punch one, he tends to try to avoid contact on his way to the rim, and it leads to wild attempts that don't have any reason to be out of control. Those tend to fall harmlessly off of the rim, and it wastes some great playmaking from guys like Harden, who do their best to take all of the creative pressure off Thybulle. He needs to be a play finisher, because he's certainly not a self-creator.
The defensive end wasn't much better. Thybulle ended up in early foul trouble after picking up three personals that were absolute no-doubt mistakes from him, including a play where Darius Garland got him with a rip through move roughly 40 feet from the basket. A player who is supposed to be your top defensive option on the perimeter can't make as many undisciplined mistakes as Thybulle does, and the concerning thing is that he's not super young by NBA standards anymore. A 25-year-old near the end of his third season should be making fewer mental mistakes than Thybulle does at this point, and we've seen that come back to bite the Sixers in huge moments already.
(To be fair to Thybulle, I thought the dumb foul problem was not limited to his antics against Cleveland. The Sixers allowed the Cavs to hang around in the game during a lights out offensive performance thanks in part to their undisciplined approach. He was the face of the problem, but vets like Danny Green weren't a whole lot better.)
If we're focusing on process over results, I do like that the Sixers are finding ways to manufacture quality looks for Thybulle in spite of his offensive limitations. But in just a few weeks, nobody is going to care much about shot quality, they'll simply be interested in whether he can cash in on those looks. Don't get your hopes up.
• I would feel less concerned about Thybulle if Danny Green looked anywhere close to his best this season. Physically, he doesn't have the same burst and recovery speed to make an impact as a team defender, and that has made any mental errors he makes on defense all the more costly. Expecting him to find the next gear down the stretch is a big ask when you consider all of the time he has missed this year and the sheer volume of problems he has been up against, from COVID to soft-tissue injuries to a sliced open hand.
Not being able to use him as the break glass in case of emergency guy is a pretty big deal, because at this point, their best bet is probably throwing Georges Niang in that spot and hoping he doesn't get completely torched on defense. Not what you want.
• I don't think James Harden was Philadelphia's biggest problem in this game, mostly because his passing and the attention he drew created opportunities for guys all over the floor. He even showed some decent burst with defenders forcing him to his right hand, finding pockets of space inside the arc only to swing a pass to an open shooter. He doesn't get a demerit because, for example, Georges Niang missed multiple open threes Harden created for him. But Harden's scoring repertoire has looked more limited than it used to be, and that's certainly a concern looking ahead to the playoffs.
I'd go so far as to say that Harden is overpassing right now, milking the clock or getting into advantageous situations before firing a pass that most people would probably rather see him put up toward the rim. When he's working the middle of the floor with Joel Embiid, nobody is sweating whether Harden gives the ball up or not. Spraying late-clock passes to questionable shooters in the corners, on the other hand, falls in a different category, and I'd rather see him put more of an emphasis on getting to the rim. The running back version of Harden is still in there, at least in spurts, and the offense always looks more dangerous with him in attack mode.
Harden's inability to his stepback threes right now is lower on the list of concerns for me. It's a high-difficulty shot even though he's one of the best in the league (and best ever) at making that exact shot, so you're going to go through stretches where you can't get it to fall. They do need him to give stronger consideration to catch-and-shoot looks, though, because Harden is getting good looks at the rim on kick-outs and basically just waiting until a defender is up in his face. I don't have high expectations that this will change, given his career trajectory, but it must be said.
• I get that Isaiah Joe getting randomly thrown into games isn't going to produce the best possible results for the kid, but I would find calls for him to play more credible if he showed basically anything during the meaningful minutes he has gotten. Just another one of the many struggling bench players this year. Two dumb fouls in a few short minutes of action is not going to endear you to your head coach, and he hasn't done anything to suggest he's an NBA shooter. The shot looks pretty, I get it, but you don't get points for good-looking form. The ball has to go in the hoop at some point.
• DeAndre Jordan missed a wide-open dunk on what was basically a perfect lob pass from Tyrese Maxey in the first half of this game. If he can't finish those, he shouldn't even be on the roster.
The crazy thing is, this was probably the best I've thought Jordan has looked since joining the team, and he still had 4-5 moments where you can only roll your eyes at the effort, execution, or inability to compete physically at this point. If Rivers is going to die on this hill, he's going to deserve whatever repercussions come from that.
• The foul discipline issue mentioned in the Thybulle section is something that we should probably discuss through the lens of the coaching staff. They do things that a team of their supposed caliber should never, ever do in a lot of important situations. For example, what is Tobias Harris doing taking a foul and letting a guy score with eight seconds left and the Sixers up four. You have two options there — you can either take a foul, which should happen early in the clock, or you simply let your guy go and concede the two points.
Harris deserves his share of criticism for doing something like that in that spot, but it feels like the Sixers rotate through players who make bonehead decisions like that one every night. Eventually, it doesn't all come back to the players.
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