March 16, 2024
After a close road loss against the Milwaukee Bucks on Thursday night, the Sixers returned to their home floor for what is, at least on paper, a much more favorable matchup, as they played host to the lowly Charlotte Hornets. This one was a lot closer than the Sixers wanted it to be, but they did escape with a 109-98 win. Here is what jumped out from the victory:
• Tobias Harris missed this one due to an ankle sprain after he took a tough fall in Milwaukee. Harris was in tremendous pain, but stayed in the game and actually got in a rhythm despite the injury. But it appears the ankle did not respond well to treatment, as the Sixers ruled him out a couple of hours before tip-off. Nic Batum started in his place.
• Mo Bamba cashed in an early triple as the screener in a pick-and-pop action with Tyrese Maxey. Those plays have generated the vast majority of Bamba's triples — and because he is not a particularly effective roller to the rim, his three-point shooting is the only way in which he can produce offensively. Certainly the Sixers should not make Bamba's shooting a central aspect of their offense, but they should consider giving him the green light to launch from beyond the arc more often than he does now. Bamba knocks down enough of his three-point tries that opposing bigs have to at least consider stepping out and running him off the three-point line.
• Kelly Oubre Jr.'s frequent ambitious dunk attempts — and the resulting misses — have caused frustration all season long. But Oubre converted two dunks in traffic in the opening minutes of this one, and once again his constant rim pressure helped the Sixers offense avoid stagnation early. Oubre scored 11 points in the first quarter, which led both teams.
• Sixers head coach Nick Nurse forecasted before the game that with Harris out, KJ Martin would likely see an increase in playing time. In Martin's first stint, a nine-minute outing that started in the first quarter and ended in the second quarter, he converted an and-one at the rim, knocked down a wing triple, grabbed two rebounds and dished out a pair of assists. Martin is not just intriguing as a bigger wing; he has shown flashes of competency as a small-ball center in the right matchups.
• Maxey suffered two injury scares in the second quarter: first, he took a hard fall on his elbow and looked to be in severe pain, but stayed in the game. Then, he took a brutal elbow to the head from Hornets rookie Brandon Miller. This was especially ominous given Maxey just recovered from a concussion, but he turned out to be okay after being attended to by the Sixers' medical staff. Miller was assessed a Flagrant 2 foul and ejected.
• Nurse went to an extremely small lineup midway through the second quarter. Maxey shared the floor with Kyle Lowry and Cam Payne in a three-point guard lineup. This unit was able to hold up defensively for two reasons: Charlotte is a relatively small team right now, and Lowry is more than capable of guarding above his height. While the Sixers' ball movement was great for most of the half, it was particularly excellent when the three point guards shared the floor and took turns facilitating. Each of the three guards had a trio of assists by the end of the first half.
• Lowry's box score numbers will not always look particularly impressive. He did not score until around the midway point of the third quarter. But even when he is not at his best, Lowry — who turns 38 later on this month — just has an innate, infectious energy that is hard to quantify but easy to recognize. Nurse has relied on Lowry a lot since his arrival in Philadelphia last month, and the trust he has in the guard with whom he won a championship in Toronto is understandable. Lowry is a coach's ideal chess piece: he can fit in just about any role on offense thanks to the malleability of his skillset, and can always be relied upon to make the right decisions.
• Payne was excellent against Milwaukee, and he carried that momentum into this contest. He looks extremely confident — even more than he usually does — and is making all of the right decisions. He knows when to take the three, when to try to create advantages as a driver and when to capitalize on those advantages by finding an open shooter or cutter. Patrick Beverley was solid in his time with the Sixers, but given the way this roster has been built — particularly with Lowry now on board — there is a strong argument to be made that Payne is more useful to the Sixers than Beverley would have been. Perhaps President of Basketball Operations Daryl Morey's most maligned trade of the season was not as bad as everybody thought.
• With a chance to put the game out of reach at the beginning of the fourth quarter, a Sixers lineup that was built around Payne, Buddy Hield and Oubre struggled on both ends of the floor, eventually allowing Charlotte to take the lead. But when Maxey and Batum reentered the game, the Sixers' offense found new life: Maxey hit a ridiculous step-back three, Batum made key passes and Hield — who has struggled mightily as a finisher around the rim in recent games — converted a pair of layups. Then came Paul Reed, who stepped up with a few momentum-shifting offensive plays. Reed played considerably fewer minutes than Bamba in this one, and that is
• This was one of Batum's better all-around games — he was a presence on the glass, dished out a handful of assists and applied tremendous pressure to Charlotte ball-handlers. Batum has not been nearly as effective in recent weeks as he was in his first handful of games as a Sixer, but this was a step in the right direction for the veteran.
• The Hornets were right there with the Sixers for nearly the entire fourth quarter, but ultimately the Sixers made just enough plays down the stretch to hang on. Is it ideal that this went down to the wire, or that Maxey logged over 40 minutes? Certainly not. But given the current state of the Sixers, any type of win is more than welcomed.
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