May 29, 2021
The Sixers are one game away from finishing off the Wizards, and their 132-103 victory on Saturday night looks to have all but broken Washington's spirit. Behind a dominant Joel Embiid performance — 36 points, eight rebounds, and three steals on 78 percent from the field — Philadelphia walked to a Game 3 victory that was never in doubt.
Here's what I saw.
• With the series pivoting to Washington, there was always a chance that Philadelphia would open the door for the Wizards to get back into the series. They're not the road disaster they were last season, but they're certainly much better when they're on their home floor.
But maybe that's a thought we need to leave in the past with the old Sixers. The starting group came out as if they were on a mission to crush Washington's spirit once and for all, with the top five firing on all cylinders during an excellent first half. Outside of some cheating off of corner shooters, they executed brilliantly and looked like they want to get this series over as soon as possible.
• Embiid was not about to go another game without reminding everyone who the franchise player is. Tobias Harris dominated in his absence in Game 1, Ben Simmons had a monster Game 2, and so the big guy had to come through and crush the building on Saturday night, rolling to 25 points by halftime and leaving his imprint all over the box score even if you set aside his scoring exploits.
Why would you ever want to ignore those exploits, though? Game 3 featured vintage Embiid as an attacker, with Simmons (smartly) ceding control of the team once his center began to get rolling. He continued his hot streak from beyond the arc with a pair of made threes in the first half, and that opened up the rest of the floor for Embiid to go to work. Washington's bigs had no answer for him, with Embiid using up fakes to blow by guys, strength to throw Daniel Gafford off of his back, and a good old-fashioned pump fake to come up with the highlight of the half, a hellacious dunk that was damn near identical to a dunk attempt he missed moments earlier. With Embiid getting into it with the road crowd, it was as if he felt the need to make up for his one big mistake of the half:
Smart business decision to stay out of his way. pic.twitter.com/u9BNTL4jSk
— Philadelphia 76ers (@sixers) May 30, 2021
Single-covering Embiid was, to put it lightly, a terrible decision from Scott Brooks. Keeping him relatively uninvolved was one of the only positives of the first two games for Washington, and as soon as they stopped showing him the respect he has earned this year, Embiid burst through the wall like a seven-foot-tall Kool Aid Man. Who could have seen that coming?
There's more to life than dunks and made jumpers, obviously. Embiid was more engaged on defense than he has been at any other point in this series, coming up with three steals and controlling the paint the way only he knows how. When Washington sent pressure at Embiid in the post, he continued his run of strong decisionmaking, hitting crosscourt passes with ease.
Embiid has barely had to get rolling for the Sixers to come within a game of a sweep, and that's a great sign. With Philadelphia able to ride a different member of their big three to victory in the first three games of this series, they are building a head of steam at the right time of year. They look close to some well-earned rest before they kick off their next series.
• Once again, Simmons was the guy who got Philadelphia off to a fast start against the Wizards, continuing a run of excellent play to open the playoffs. It hasn't been especially complicated for him in this series — as he was happy to remind Russell Westbrook after he scored on him in the post, these guys are just too little to deal with him when he sets his mind to scoring.
Even the Wizards player with the best size/strength package, Rui Hachimura, is just drawing dead against Simmons (and Tobias Harris) right now. Simmons has felt no reason to do anything but go at and through him when he gets matched up with Hachimura, who is having a particularly tough series on the defensive end. Then again, I couldn't name a single player having a good time there for Washington.
Once his big man began to heat up, Simmons did what he could to try to keep him in that groove. On a transition possession midway through the first quarter, Simmons executed a quick give-and-go with Embiid, rewarding his big man for running the floor and helping his team earn free throws in the process. Plays like that are considerably more important and telling than raw assist numbers, and I thought Simmons' feel for what to do and when to do it was excellent on Saturday.
• If Seth Curry and Danny Green shoot like they did against Washington on Saturday, the Sixers are basically impossible to beat. Seriously, what do you do when you can't leave their shooters and the team's best players can't be single-covered in the paint? You give up a lot of points and lose, basically.
It helps that both guys get to their shots in different ways. You would think somebody would figure out a way to stop Danny Green from living in the corners, but he is a master at wrong-footing whoever is guarding him or sneaking by them when they're not looking, earning prized real estate to get his shots up. He was in such a good groove in the first half that Green pulled in transition after taking just a couple of steps past halfcourt, smiling on his way back to the huddle when the miss careened off of a Wizards player to go out of bounds.
Curry is no stranger to the corner (or the free-throw line extended, for that matter) but he is involved in a lot more on-ball action with both Embiid and Simmons. Handoffs involving Curry are consistently dangerous, and even when he's not pulling from beyond the arc, he's stressing opponents into jumping and lunging at him, setting up open shots later in the clock.
Great night from these two.
• Solid, professional effort from Tobias Harris in this one even though he wasn't close to the leading man. When he had opportunities to attack Hachimura out of pick-and-rolls and post-ups, he absolutely tore the young forward apart. Otherwise, Harris focused on doing the little things right, crashing the defensive glass and doing his part to turn away Russell Westbrook at the rim a time or two in the second half.
One of the quietest 20-10+ performances you're ever going to see, and the Sixers will take that every single night if they can get it.
• It did not pay off in the form of high-level production for the rookie, but I liked seeing Rivers go to Tyrese Maxey over Shake Milton in the first half. It was the right call based on how the two had played up to that point, and that shows Rivers is willing to switch things up and go away from what got them here, something he has been reluctant to do with other teams he has coached in the past.
That might be the limit of his flexibility, mind you, but it's flexibility all the same. Small decisions like these could be the difference between winning and losing against other teams down the road.
• The Sixers have gotten away with playing the all-bench group in the first round, at least in the sense that they're winning these games in spite of using that group. I hope Rivers treasures this moment while it lasts, because there is no way this group should see the floor when they play teams who can actually make them sweat.
I think it's easy to see the all-bench group struggle when they're out on the floor and understand that it is not good. You can look at simplified stats like plus/minus and say, "Man, they really sucked out there!" What's harder to quantify is the snowball effect it has for Washington's best players, who can get rolling against lesser players off of Philadelphia's bench and sustain that momentum when the starters are back. You want to put an opposing team down and step on their necks, and the all-bench group is basically a portable supply of oxygen.
Rivers' insistence on playing this group will be one of the major storylines heading into round two and (hopefully) beyond. All we can do is wait and see.
• Milton is just a mess right now. Rivers may not especially want to have a rookie guard in the rotation, but I'm not sure he has any other choice right now given how his old sixth man is playing.
• Philadelphia's defense was not good, but they were hardly trying against a group they were absolutely carving up on the other end.
• Don't be surprised if you hear, "1, 2, 3, Cancun!" from Washington's huddle on Monday night. This team is cooked. When you lose the good Westbrook game by this much, you've got no shot.
I don't want to bring back the five-game series in the first round, but I think there should be a skunk rule at 3-0 in the first round only. The Wizards would need an act of god to turn this series around. Save everybody the hassle.
(They mercy-ruled Scott Brooks from needing to do the TNT interview to open the fourth quarter. That about says it all.)
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