The Sixers choked away a huge lead to drop another home game on Friday night, losing to the Clippers in a 102-101 barnburner.
Here's what I saw.
The Good
• Los Angeles looked like they had a solid plan to deal with Joel Embiid when he checked out for the first time late in the first quarter. They did everything they could to get the ball out of his hands when he got the ball on the block, preventing him from going to work against Ivica Zubac in the post.
If you haven't watched the Sixers much lately, you have learned by now not to count out Embiid just because he gets out of the gate a bit slow. The second quarter was much friendlier to the big man, and it was off to the races from there. And I mean that literally — the Sixers were able to get stops and prevent the Clippers from getting into the structure they wanted defensively, allowing Embiid to attack them before they could get set.
Embiid streaking down the floor and finishing dunks and layups without any assistance has become commonplace this year, but it's still breathtaking watching him come away with a rebound or steal, survey the floor as he dribbles toward the opponent's basket, and eventually explode toward the rim for a highlight-reel play. There's a combination of skill, speed, and old-fashioned footwork on display when he pulls off the coast-to-coast moves, as he did on a gorgeous finish midway through the second quarter.
And even though the Clippers managed to stifle him at times in the first half, Embiid did an excellent job of staying engaged and finding ways to score when he wasn't the offensive hub on a given possession. Embiid had a pair of offensive rebounds in the first half, including one that led to a layup through contact for two points plus the free throw, Clippers players hanging all over him as he scored. He doesn't live on the offensive glass the way somebody like Andre Drummond does, but he has done a better job of using that to springboard himself to bigger things the last two years.
There's absolutely no way they should need a Herculean effort from Embiid to close out this version of the Clippers. It's great to see him put up numbers and continue to put pressure on the front office, but this should have been an easy victory. 40-13-6 is an insane line, but a loss is a loss.
• Perhaps I will end up regretting taking this stance down the road, but I am ready to put my belief in Tyrese Maxey being a good outside shooter, full stop. There are a lot of good indicators here — he is a reliable free-throw shooter, has shown excellent touch closer to the basket, and most importantly, we are seeing results when he lets the ball go from deep this season. And Maxey isn't just taking wide-open looks as a catch-and-shoot guy, he's finding his stride as a pull-up shooter, using Embiid's big body and screens as his shield for pull-up threes.
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Maxey being able to stretch out a defense and bring defenders out to him is basically the holy grail for the second-year guard. If guys second guess whether they need to get out to Maxey or not, they are dead in the water. Maxey can blow by them to get to the paint, pull up for a clean look from midrange, and his playmaking/decisionmaking is getting better over time. He hurt the Clippers in a lot of ways all over the floor, fighting off a tough start to star in the offense as they began to take over this game in the second quarter.
Most of my complaints about Maxey are, as usual, more about the team-wide approach and his marginalization as the games wear on. He shouldn't be fading from view the deeper the Sixers get into games. Maxey is their most dynamic dribbler, let him attack and I would bet some of your constant problems aren't as glaring. The confidence he had going early in the game faded when they got into a tight spot late, and while I would put some of that on the kid, you have to actually try to keep him involved the rest of the game if you need him to come through down the stretch.
• This was at least a decent game from Tobias Harris on offense, but I think we should take a moment to appreciate his defensive intensity in this one, given his inconsistency on that end for most of this season. He didn't have it early in this one (and neither did the rest of his Sixers teammates), so rather than sulk and check out on the other end, he dug in and went to work to slow down Los Angeles. Mission successful.
Some of his defensive lowlights have been scrutinized in a big way recently, and this game featured Harris trending in the other direction, making smart reads away from the ball to break up passes and close passing windows Clippers players thought were there, leading to some wild attempts when they found themselves in midair with nowhere to go with the ball. On a man-to-man level, Harris also had some success guarding Marcus Morris, but that's a little more intuitive — Morris is in a similar physical mold as Harris, and he has historically done a decent job of guarding guys like himself, proving strong enough and quick enough to neutralize the advantages they might have over other guys.
The Sixers don't need Tobias Harris to be a 20-point guy every single night in order to win games. They are going to need to lean on his individual scoring from time-to-time, certainly, but what they really need is for him to fill in the blanks every night, shapeshifting as the moment warrants. With his improvement as an off-ball cutter and the chemistry he has shown playing off of the pressure directed at Embiid, he looks closer to being a nightly net-positive lately, even with some of his brutal shooting efforts.
The Bad
• Doc Rivers will probably assert once again that he is happy with his team's overall execution against zone defense, but I am not sure how you can look at their body of work against different zone looks and do anything except shake your head. The Clippers switching it up in this game turned what would have been an easy blowout into a second-half slog, and you would think they'd find a way to avoid this problem by now.
There's nothing all that new to write about the problem. When the Sixers face zone, there's far too much time spent moving the ball side-to-side and gaining absolutely no ground, waiting for an opportunity that is never going to come unless they start playing more direct. Their best possessions against zone basically all attack the middle early in the clock, getting the ball to one of Harris or Embiid at the elbows and looking for deep seals in the paint immediately afterward. Why they don't do that more often is hard to figure out, because standing around and watching time tick down is clearly not the answer.
Zone defense is no different from man-to-man in the sense that there are obvious tenets to follow in order to beat it, though the Sixers seem to lose sight of them every single time they're up against it. It is absolutely baffling, and it's the sort of thing an NBA team shouldn't have to be reminded of when teams are throwing this exact wrench at them over and over and over again. And here's another thing — you can still dribble a basketball against zone defense! In fact, it's often the preferred option, because once you get through that first line of defense, the world is going to open up in front of you.
By allowing the Clippers to junk up this game and slowly climb back into it over the course of the second half, the Sixers found themselves in pressure situations late, and they didn't respond well. That includes Embiid, and it certainly includes Doc Rivers, who stood by and basically did nothing while Ty Lue showed creativity and threw different looks at the Sixers in order to disrupt what they wanted to do.
Lue's approach was an example of what a lot of Sixers fans want to see out of their coach. Instead of fearing that Nic Batum would get overwhelmed defending Embiid in the post, Lue bet on the French forward's ability to disrupt entries with his length and athleticism, and provided help to Batum in the form of zones and doubles throughout the fourth quarter.
Ultimately, the difference between the two coaching approaches is no different than what you've seen play out for Rivers in the playoffs, here and at his previous stops. Searching for answers midgame, Lue was proactive and responded to the game unfolding around him with moves on the chessboard. Rivers watched as the game happened in front of him and was basically a passenger as the game passed Philadelphia by.
• The Clippers had a clear game plan to slow down the Sixers coming into this one. Whenever Embiid got the ball on the block, the Clippers were using a weakside defender to double him, forcing him to either go through two guys or look for the open man. In other words, they bet on the Sixers struggling to win if anybody else had to beat them, and it was a smart bet based on the early returns.
For his part, Embiid was game to serve as the playmaker for Philadelphia's offense, routinely hitting the crosscourt pass to the corner that should have resulted in makes for Sixers players. But even with Embiid routinely hitting Philly's shooters sitting and waiting in that spot, ranging from Isaiah Joe to Georges Niang, the shots just would not go down, leaving the Sixers in an early hole they had to climb out of.
Frankly, though, this was a problem stemming mostly from the Clippers' shotmaking to open the game. The Sixers were constantly taking the ball out of their own basket in the first quarter, allowing L.A. to get set on defense for basically every possession. Once they were able to inject some pace into the game, the Sixers looked mostly fine for the middle portion of this game. I will refer you to the first block of text in The Bad for what happened after that.
• The Sixers have way too many bench shooters who can't put together reliable stretches from deep. Furkan Korkmaz has the coldest cold spells of anybody on the team. Georges Niang swings wildly between "impactful role player" and "unplayable brick machine." Isaiah Joe might be the most infuriating of the bunch, strictly because he has the best-looking jumper of anybody on the team. The effortless nature of his shot release doesn't change the fact that his shooting numbers are way below where they need to be.
The Ugly
• In the second half of this game, Andre Drummond had two of the most absolutely insane shot attempts a Sixers player has had all season, at least if we're talking relative to their skill set. There is basically no time where anyone needs to see Drummond attempting Euro steps and throwing up high-arcing floaters in traffic, both of which are decidedly outside of his wheelhouse. Put-backs at the rim and dunks on rolls are fine, but Drummond's biggest problem continues to be his refusal to stay within a role and master it.
• I love Charlie Brown's effort and athleticism on the defensive end, but I can't understand him being as bad as he has been on layups. We're not talking about his inability to make jumpers, this guy is missing layups by several feet when he puts them up. It is absolute madness and is going to prevent him from growing into a role any bigger than the one he has.
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