February 21, 2019
Without Joel Embiid manning the paint for Philadelphia, the Sixers certainly looked lost for stretches against the Miami Heat. But a strong close led by their remaining stars was enough to earn them a victory in their first game following the All-Star break, a 106-102 win.
Here's what I saw in Philadelphia's win over Miami.
• There are plenty of teams in today's NBA who are built to exploit Boban Marjanovic's weaknesses. The Miami Heat are certainly not one of them, so good on Boban for coming out guns blazing in the opening minutes of Thursday night's game.
He did all the stuff you expect a man of his size to do — set great screens, finish around the basket, and come down with offensive rebounds that he barely had to exert for. With the Heat not particularly interested in pushing the pace, the Sixers were able to maximize his effectiveness on defense as well.
But he was far from just a passenger in the offense, with a lot of Philadelphia's early offense getting him involved as a screener or a passer, if not a finisher. Boban is so massive that if you give him the ball at the top of the key, he can easily find cutters by just throwing passes over the top of the defense, and the Sixers got a couple clean looks at the basket thanks to his passing ability.
(It got to be a little too much as the game wore on, with Boban throwing away a couple turnovers with the offense stagnating.)
Boban might not have a ton of utility against teams that spread you out and run, but he has shown he can thrive in the right setting.
• The standing ovation for Dwayne Wade was Philly fans at their best. Well done.
• I've been on the opposite side of this debate on many nights this season, but T.J. McConnell needed to be on the floor more than he was during Thursday night's game. He was an absolutely massive spark off the bench, mixing it up on defense in the halfcourt and transition.
With the Sixers playing without their offensive hub, they needed somebody to come in and make a difference, even if it was just spiritually. McConnell did so much more than that. His defense broke up some Miami fast breaks that look destined for layups, and the Sixers got some of their only easy buckets of the night on run outs started by their backup point guard.
• With a lot of the supporting cast failing to step up without Embiid in the lineup, it was Ben Simmons and Jimmy Butler who did a lot of the heavy lifting for Philly on Thursday. They had two completely different approaches to the game, and both were important as the Sixers tried to eke out a win over a pestering Heat team.
Simmons was a lot more aggressive than he tends to be on an average night, demanding the ball in the post and going up strong toward the rim. The results were not always there, but Miami kept shading extra attention his way, so you still felt the impact of Simmons' aggressiveness even when he wasn't scoring.
Butler, on the other hand, did a lot more of his damage away from the ball or on quick touches, scoring on snap reads and cuts. Brett Brown asked him to do quite a bit, shifting between off guard and point guard, and that versatility helped big time.
When the fourth quarter rolled around, Butler decided it was time to switch his mentality, and he was a big part of putting Miami into the penalty early in the fourth quarter. The problem was that they didn't press the issue as a team, so they didn't gain much from that early fourth work.
• If there's one way to build trust with a new fanbase, it's to rally late after struggling to knock down shots early in the evening. Tobias Harris was a force on the offensive end in the fourth quarter, shaking off a tough first half to help carry the Sixers down the stretch. His head never dropped, and the Sixers needed that killer instinct to get the game over the line.
(Redick ain't new around here, but he followed basically the same script. He couldn't get threes to drop for most of the game, but just when the Sixers needed him to step up, he came through.)
You can tell Harris is still figuring out his assignments in the Sixers' defensive scheme because he got lost on quite a few rotations that led to easy buckets for Miami. I'm a bit more forgiving there, especially considering how different things are for Philly without their usual safety blanket on the back end.
• On the flipside of the Sixers backup center conversation, hoo boy did Jonah Bolden stink it up against the Heat. It's tough to kill that guy after he was glued to the bench post-deadline, and this is a matchup better suited for Boban than Bolden. Even with those caveats, he had a tough night.
I'll grant him this much, I don't think Brown did the Sixers a lot of favors with the lineups he put on the floor that used Bolden. Brown again turned to the Harris/Butler pairing, as he did against the Knicks, which shifted Simmons' minutes to the next wave of subs. That put a lineup of Simmons-Redick-Simmons-Scott-Bolden on the floor, which has almost zero scoring juice outside of Redick. It certainly showed.
I still think Bolden deserves a closer look against more playoff-caliber opponents, but it was not his night.
• To follow up on the last point, boy does Philadelphia's terrible depth shine through when they're missing even one of their top guys. Yes, Embiid is the best player out of all of them and their safety valve when things go haywire, but they have enough top-end talent that they shouldn't be as harmed by their depth as they are.
I don't know who this team is going to turn to when things get tougher in the playoffs. James Ennis hasn't offered much of anything, Jonathon Simmons has been erratic and can't shoot much, and the backup center question is still sort of up in the air.
With Embiid out, someone on this group needs to step up and solidify themselves in the rotation. We're still waiting on that.
• One downside with Boban — he's up so high in the air that he's prone to having the ball smacked out of his hands by guys with a lower center of gravity. Not much you can do to avoid that.
• Listen, I know it was the first night back for everybody following the All-Star break, but the Sixers' game ops team was still on vacation. They played "Whoa" by Black Rob while the Sixers were on defense — nobody plays songs for a defensive possession — they repeated another song ("Who Shot Ya" by Biggie) and they had the damn Fortnite cam going while the actual game was going on, complete with arena MC Christian Crosby (who does a great job, BTW) yelling with the actual game going on.
It's a tough job, but act like you've been here before. The dunk squad was the only group that showed up ready to play.
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