November 17, 2016
Even though the teams came in with a combined 5-16 record, there was a healthy amount of anticipation for Thursday night’s Sixers game against the Minnesota Timberwolves on TNT. I know I was excited:
Let's gooooooooo pic.twitter.com/ZQrIjb4em3
— Rich Hofmann (@rich_hofmann) November 18, 2016
Sir Charles was definitely looking forward to it:
"I can not believe we have the T'Wolves and Sixers. This is awesome." - The Chuckster
— Rich Hofmann (@rich_hofmann) November 18, 2016
And most of NBA Twitter was salivating at the thought of Karl-Anthony Towns and Joel Embiid matching up for the first time in their young careers. And then the game happened:
NBA
Towns and Wiggins were dominant, Tom Thibodeau played each of them 38 minutes despite the outcome never being in doubt after the first quarter, and the Wolves handed the Sixers the type of blowout loss we have often seen over the past few years.
It’s just that this one happened to come on national television. I imagine that will make the result sting a little more, especially when you went into the game reading comments like this:
Embiid eager to play on national TV, wants to start to "change people's mind when they think about Sixers." https://t.co/qRDQbgye41
— Brian Seltzer (@brianseltzer) November 18, 2016
As it turned out, Embiid and Towns weren’t matched up at the beginning of the game; Ersan Ilyasova and Gorgui Dieng took on the other team’s promising young big defensively, respectively. Embiid, who was doubled early and often by a defensive guru in Thibs, finished with 10 points (4-9 FG, 2-4 FT).
As you can see above, Towns schooled Embiid with excellent footwork and pump-fakes on a couple of occasions in the second half. Thibs rarely stuck Towns on Embiid, preferring to double-team the rookie whenever he caught the ball in the low post.
(Also, it was pretty funny to see Kevin Harlan freak out every time Embiid hit the deck. Balance is an area that JoJo definitely has to work on, which is understandable after two-plus years sitting out. Not as funny was Reggie Miller calling Embiid’s minutes limit a product of “analytics.” Come on, man.)
Logically, there was also a “schedule loss” element to this game. The Wolves had a day of rest after playing at home, and the Sixers flew in Wednesday night after defeating the Washington Wizards. It was always going to be a tough task, and the Sixers starting backcourt (Gerald Henderson, Sergio Rodriguez, Robert Covington) might have had heavy legs, shooting a combined 2-20 from the field.
Outside of a brief two-game respite, Covington (1-12 FG) has not been able to throw the ball in the ocean since the season started. For the Sixers’ best option at small forward, it has been a brutal start to the season offensively.
This was a poor performance on national television, no doubt about it. The Sixers will now return home for Saturday night’s game against the Phoenix Suns.
Follow Rich on Twitter: @rich_hofmann
