The Sixers got yet another masterclass from Joel Embiid on national television, and the big guy's 36 points in 26 minutes were enough to carry the Sixers to a 113-95 over the Mavericks.
Here's what I saw.
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The Good
• I spent a good chunk of Friday's recap laying into the Sixers for not properly taking advantage of foul trouble for Steven Adams. I am pleased to report they did not make the same mistake twice — Joel Embiid went to work against a small Dallas frontline, and it was a free-throw parade for most of the first quarter.
Thanks to Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle's lineup choices, we got to see a clash of styles play out on the floor. Embiid was late to a few closeouts against three-point shooters, but he more than made up for it on the other end, barreling through starter Maxi Kleber and backup Nico Melli before the Mavericks eventually decided it was Boban time. When the Mavericks were small, Embiid got the ball in the post on almost every possession, playmaking when doubles came and attacking otherwise.
Credit to the Sixers (and Embiid, certainly) for the adjustment they made when Boban entered the game. Instead of just trying to muscle with a giant in the post, Embiid started running pick-and-rolls and dribble handoffs, forcing Dallas' hulking center to try to defend in space (at least initially). Even something as simple as starting an Embiid possession from a different spot on the floor makes a difference, and that's something Doc Rivers has emphasized a lot during his first season in charge.
Regardless of the gameplan, Embiid looked like a guy on a mission. There have been a lot of nights where Embiid decides the other team just can't guard him this season, and Monday's first half was up there with any of them. Dallas' bigs picked up nine combined fouls in the first 24 minutes alone, and when poor Willie Cauley-Stein had the audacity to wrestle with Embiid in the post to close out the half, he was swiftly punished for it, as Embiid took the matchup that much more personally after a WCS takedown.
An even better sign — once Embiid got on a roll at the stripe, the midrange shots started falling. While that was basically a lock to happen for most of this season, Embiid has been open about his struggle to adjust while wearing a knee brace, so seeing him uncork Hakeem-esque wiggles in the post and one-legged fadeaway on the baseline was a beautiful sight.
Big-bodied players give him problems at times still, but this game shows how many answers he has depending on who the opponent throws at him. It's why you have to take the Sixers seriously to win any and every playoff series — he is firmly in the conversation with the best players in the league and can bend the game in the direction he wants. That's rare territory.
• Perhaps the Zion Williamson massacre finally moved Rivers to consider staggering his stars full-time, and if that's the case, it was a worthwhile clunker everyone had to sit through. Ben Simmons is the guy who got the early hook in Monday night's game, allowing Rivers to keep at least one of his top two players on the floor at basically all times.
It could be a matchup-specific quirk, as Simmons spent most of his night shadowing Luka Doncic's minutes (not that it did much to slow down Dallas' alpha dog). But after seeing Rivers go this route against the Thunder on Saturday, there's a small bit of hope it could stick. The Sixers would be better for it, even if they still have to figure out lineup combinations that work still.
(Worth noting: we didn't really get to see if this held up in the second half, with Rivers relaxing a bit as the Sixers put this game out of reach. I'm holding onto this anyway, damn it.)
• I don't know what or who got into Furkan Korkmaz, but he is on the upswing as the Sixers try to solidify things heading down the stretch of the regular season. We've seen Korkmaz put it together for small runs before, but that has never featured legitimate two-way play like we've seen from him lately, and he looks like a tough guy to knock out of the playoff rotation.
The major key for Korkmaz is that he seems to have figured out exactly when and how to play the passing lanes without leaving himself exposed on backdoor cuts or quick swings to the corner. While he still lacks the strength to hold up well in one-on-one battles, he cares about his craft and has enough length to disrupt, which is roughly half of the battle.
More time with starters in the mix has unlocked Korkmaz, and that makes you a bit excited about how he'll look once George Hill enters the mix. With less of the playmaking duties thrust onto him by necessity, Korkmaz can focus on shooting, scoring, and continuing to build on his defensive progress. That's a great place for him to be.
• The Sixers are honestly getting somewhat of a down year for Seth Curry — these are his worst numbers from deep since he became an NBA rotation player — and it still feels like they won the trade with Dallas handily. There was a sequence in the third quarter where Richardson bricked an open three only for Curry to step into an effortless make in transition, and it brought back memories of how many times the Sixers were on the opposite end of that exchange last season.
Josh Richardson made very little sense with Philly's personnel, doesn't look a whole lot more useful on a much different Dallas team, and purely from an aesthetic standpoint, I'm glad at the direction they went in. Good guy, sort of a clunky basketball player.
Thought exercise: what's the most the Sixers would have had to attach to Richardson for this deal to be a loss for Philly? Keep in mind that Curry is on a team-friendly deal for another two seasons after this one.
• Matisse Thybulle may have had my favorite play of the game on a night where the big fella had one of his most dominant performances of the season. On a loose ball that squirted into Dallas' backcourt, Thybulle decided to run the play down instead of simply settling for a Philadelphia inbounds pass deep in Mavericks territory, and his effort earned the Sixers a three-point look from Danny Green, who promptly knocked the shot down.
Some weird blips like that recent Pelicans game aside, the Sixers have played like a team hungry to prove something to themselves and the rest of the league. They have talent, sure, but they (mostly) play hard and they are not taking that talent for granted. An opportunity is only valuable if you take the chance seriously, and Philadelphia is playing like a team aware of the possibilities in front of them.
(A Thybulle-specific note — does anyone know the fewest amount of minutes a player has appeared in while making an All-Defense team? I'm just thinking out loud here. He's ridiculous.)
• This was not a great defensive performance through the first two quarters or so, but the process eventually earned the results it deserved. I think people focus on versatility to describe Simmons' defensive value, e.g. "He can guard one through five!" but that underrates the impact it has for Simmons to be able to take one guy on an island and fight with him for the entire game, leaving everyone else in position to help and contest.
Simmons did not exactly shut down Doncic on Monday night, but his impact as a playmaker was limited because of how the Sixers could setup around that matchup. It's one of the many reasons I've tried to push people away from summing up his night by pointing to matchup data on NBA.com. Defense goes a lot deeper than that.
The Bad
• Do we want to go in-depth with Dwight Howard's foul trouble? That seems doubtful after such an effortless win over a good Dallas team. He needs to be smarter, yeah, but there were some bogus calls in that mix (especially the "shove" that drew a tech in the third quarter).
The Ugly
• Embiid was a foul-drawing machine all night, and it seems absurd to suggest this but he didn't get enough fouls called on him Monday night. Some of them were egregious no-calls — Boban whacked him in the face on a lob play in the first half, and Embiid sat under the rim licking his wounds while Dallas ran back the other way.
You can't call a foul on every possession, but this dude is testing that theory every time he takes the floor. He's a special talent.
(I suppose Embiid wasn't the only guy to not get calls on Monday. Shake Milton took a shot to the grill in the fourth quarter that went uncalled, much to Milton's chagrin as he remained under the basket with Dallas running the other way.)
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