March 14, 2022
The Sixers got an MVP-level performance from Joel Embiid, but they fell to the Denver Nuggets anyway, losing a 114-110 barnburner on their home floor.
Here's what I saw.
• There have been some first halves lately where you couldn't really tell if Joel Embiid was going to be interested in the game or not. As expected, this wasn't one of those games. Even after playing overtime the night before in Orlando, Embiid was revved up for this one, perhaps his last great chance to make a case for the MVP trophy.
He did a damn good job of making his point. With Nikola Jokic sputtering at the other end, coughing up turnovers in uncharacteristic fashion, Embiid was going to work on his counterpart, his jumper on point after a rough game against the Magic. Jokic's footing was unsure from jump street in this one — Embiid blew by him for a dunk when he bit on an early pump fake, and his hesitancy to get in Embiid's face afforded the big man the space he needed to get clean looks at the rim.
Embiid didn't do a whole lot of playmaking in the first half, but the game didn't warrant it. Denver showed two against James Harden quite often, with Harden threading passes into Embiid with only the low man in front of him. There was some downside to that — the Nuggets kept sliding into his path after he'd turn and catch passes, and though Embiid snuck around or got the benefit of the whistle a time or two, one of those plays contributed to his first-half foul trouble.
There was a feeling that this game was getting away from Philly early in the first half, with Denver building on their momentum from the end of the second quarter. Embiid put a stop to that basically by himself, going on an individual scoring run to push the Sixers back out in front while refusing to concede space to Jokic on the other end.
There was very little wasted movement in the way Embiid went about his business, with Embiid and Harden working the two-man game over and over and over again, A criticism many have levied at Embiid (including myself) over the years was his refusal to beat slow-footed centers the way you're supposed to, by exploiting them in space. Perhaps that was simply about getting the right guy to play alongside him. Whenever he wanted, Embiid could get a look at a jumper from the free-throw line, and more often than not, he was canning those.
Here's the thing that might end up getting lost in the final stat lines: when Embiid and Jokic were both on the floor, there was a fairly significant gap between their performances in favor of the guy playing on his home floor. Jokic exploited the DeAndre Jordan minutes as well as anyone could have expected, providing his team with the run they needed to get back in the game after they went down by 19 points in the first half. But if head-to-head play is your holy grail, one guy was better by a good bit in this one.
(Unfortunately for the Sixers, they still took the L in the standings. Embiid is not going to take much solace from a big game in a loss, I'd imagine.)
• One day after I ripped into Matisse Thybulle pretty hard for his disaster class in Orlando, he was an absolute force of nature on defense early in this game. With Embiid holding his ground against Jokic in the post, it was up to the surrounding defenders to make sure Denver's MVP could not break them down as a passer. Thybulle went a step further than that, making Jokic regret passing the ball in the first place with some terrific off-ball maneuvering.
This is the sort of matchup where Thybulle can really shine — with no perimeter alpha for him to worry about and chase for the entire game, his instincts in passing lanes are able to shine through. Thybulle had three steals before the first quarter of the game was over, and with Philadelphia getting opportunities to run, he had one of his better offensive starts in recent memory, cutting off of Harden and (mostly) making smart decisions with the ball even when he had to dribble his way out of trouble or navigate through traffic.
Probably could have used him in the game sooner in the fourth quarter.
• Harden's greatest contribution to this game is the fear Denver showed in their coverage of him, and I mean that as the highest praise. No, he didn't find his shooting boots against the Nuggets, and yes, he continued to be on the wrong side of the whistle on a bunch of occasions. But with the Nuggets committing multiple players in his direction on most offensive possessions, they were able to constantly put Denver in rotation, and there are few passers better equipped to pick that apart than Harden.
A lot of those passes ended up in Embiid's hands, and even with the Nuggets well aware that's where Harden wanted to go with the ball, he managed to find Embiid with space to operate anyway, using bounce passes, no-looks, and the occasional jump pass to move the ball where it needed to go. There were plays where Harden's pass was the most important of a given possession, but he wasn't ultimately the guy to earn an assist,
Harden's attempts to bait the officials have not sat well with this writer lately, but it felt like he got a raw deal from the officials in this one. Aaron Gordon basically tackled him on a play late in the first half with no whistle blown, only for Embiid to get his third of the game on a questionable decision at the other end.
Everyone got their money worth watching this game, and Harden was a big part of that. He let the big dawgs cook, and that was alright with me.
• You could not ask for a worse combination than Philadelphia's transition defense and Jokic's outlet passing. The Sixers have been plagued by poor defense on the break for two consecutive seasons, and by the time the second half rolled around, it was pretty clear that Philly didn't have a lot in the tank on the second half of a back-to-back. But that would have been a good excuse if this was an outlier for Philly, rather than a continuation of form across several different versions of this team.
There are not many guys who even have the freedom to pursue offensive rebounds, so there's no real explanation for this other than the Sixers getting outrun repeatedly. Jokic deserves a ton of credit for being as elite as it gets at finding streakers on the break, obviously, though it gets tiresome seeing the Sixers get blown by in transition against basically everybody they play. Giving away points is not something a team that claims it wants to contend can do.
• In a game that was billed as a battle of two MVP candidates, it was ultimately a game that was decided in the minutes to open the fourth quarter by a pair of Denver bench heroes: Bones Hyland and DeMarcus Cousins. The Nuggets spent the opening half of the quarter getting open three after open three, and that pairing ripped the Sixers a new one as a result.
There were a lot of things going wrong in that action. Every Sixers perimeter player put in that action struggled to get over or around the screen, and Embiid compounded that by hanging back instead of meeting Denver at the level. Even when he did, that gave Cousins the chance to shoot a few open threes, and the pair he made was enough to blow up Philadelphia's plans, sending them into scramble mode until (weirdly enough) the Nuggets brought Jokic into the game and Hyland took a seat on the bench.
• Danny Green being back in the rotation is ultimately a good thing for the Sixers, because they need as many two-way options available as they can find. But boy, perhaps he should have given it another two days of rest before making his return, because he stunk it up in this game.
• "Embiid outplays Jokic, Sixers lose anyway" was not on my bingo card for the evening. Great game, but definitely a weird one.
• You can show me any advanced stat you want regarding Jokic's defense, and I am going to respond with the GIF of Jimmy Butler taking a piece of paper and throwing it in the air after crumbling it. Please stop with this shit.
To be clear, the guy is one of the most incredible offensive talents I've ever seen play basketball. But please save the claims about his improved defense for somebody else.
• I'm going to continue to saying this every game until he proves otherwise — DeAndre Jordan is flat-out bad and has done nothing to show he should be getting guaranteed minutes every night. Everything looks extraordinarily difficult for him right now, mostly things that used to be his bread and butter when he was at his physical peak. Jordan was quite literally one of the best finishers of all-time at his apex, and now he's struggling to make one-foot layups with minimal resistance in front of him. Guys he used to be able to jump around or even over are basically roadblocks for him now.
If Jordan can't give you anything on offense, you can't live with the mental mistakes he's making on defense. The real kicker is that he doesn't play hard, which is an absolute requirement now that he can't erase his mistakes as easy as he once could. When the Nuggets went on a big run to end the first half and make this a game again, Jordan was waltzing down the floor with Jokic absolutely dealing on the break, offering no resistance at a moment when the Sixers could have really used it.
What's even crazier is that Rivers decided this was the game where he was going to switch up the timing of their rotation with the bigs, as if a game with against an MVP-candidate center was the time to get Embiid out of the game early. It certainly wasn't Rivers' first choice to sub Jordan back into the game with Embiid in foul trouble, but the rest is on him for continuing to go back to the Jordan well.
Somebody, anybody else needs to get a shot to play those minutes. Any backup center probably would have been drawing dead against Jokic, but it is truly insane that we are this deep into Embiid's career with the Sixers having the same exact problem. They might get bounced in the playoffs because they can't get playable minutes with their best player on the bench.
(Honestly, I would play Paul Millsap over this version of Jordan. If the defense is going to be bad regardless, at least teams will guard him out to the three-point line and leave space in the middle of the floor.)
• Jason Kelce singing the anthem before the game was excellent. I was prepared for it to be terrible, but terrible in a funny way, and he did a perfectly fine job to the delight of everyone in the building. Even if he hadn't, I think this crowd would have been happy to nudge him along and make sure he got to the finish line unscathed. The guy is bulletproof in this town.
• Some of the calls against Embiid in this game were simply criminal. Calling him for touch fouls in the post in a battle of the league's two best centers is not something anybody wanted, perhaps not even Nuggets fans. Embiid spending crunch time away from Jokic on defense was a direct product of the whistle, and that simply blows.
Follow Kyle on Twitter: @KyleNeubeck
Like us on Facebook: PhillyVoice Sports
