The Sixers' Sunday evening meeting with the Spurs got dicey in the fourth quarter, but they eventually walked away with a 115-109 victory on the road.

Here's what I saw.

The Good

• Joel Embiid's mid-range game was missing to open this one, with at least a couple of his shots rattling in and out to draw exasperated yells out of the big guy. Thankfully, Embiid didn't try to just shoot his way out of the problem, and continued to show the playmaking improvement that has helped defined his 2021-22 season.

The wait for Embiid to become a more willing and capable passer has been excruciating at times, but he has embraced the role of playmaker wholeheartedly this season, including from spots and on pass types that would have seemed insane in years past. Cross-court passes out of the post have become routine over the years, as have the quick kick-outs to the entry passer on his strong side, but against San Antonio, we saw a ton of Embiid playmaking on the move, attacking the Spurs off-the-dribble before punishing sagging defenders for leaving Philly's shooters alone.

Perhaps this is as simple as Embiid being multiple steps ahead of teams now, rather than always having to make in-the-moment decisions that can swing either way. He senses where help is going to come from and moves the ball in the opposite direction. Long before he hits a pass to somebody in the corner, he's directing traffic to get their chess pieces into position on the board, eventually hitting the exact guy he wants in order to have the best chance at a made shot. You could see this happening in real-time on Sunday night — Embiid waved for Charlie Brown Jr. and Furkan Korkmaz to switch places, then hit Korkmaz with a pass on the short-roll for a made three toward the end of the first half.

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Passing obviously isn't his first instinct or his top offensive skill, but when he can serve as a legitimate playmaker at the center of their offense, it takes the pressure off of him when he is trying to buy time for his shots to fall. The expansion of his game doesn't stop there, either. Embiid was more involved as a roller than usual in Sunday's game, and he seemed apologetic on one first-half play when he blew a lob from Tyrese Maxey only to score on his own follow, aware that he cost his younger teammate an assist. Even still, seeing him actually try to serve as a lob threat is encouraging, a sign he can and will embrace being the secondary player in actions best suited for their undersized guards.

You're not going to see many games where Embiid needs as many shot attempts to get his points as he did on Sunday evening, but he more than made up for it with his efforts elsewhere. In crunch time against the Spurs, he scored on cuts, hit guys for open layups, nailed face-up jumpers, and put Philly over the top for another road victory. He is in total control right now.

• Nobody swings from one side of the spectrum quite like Furkan Korkmaz. When Korkmaz gets jumpers to fall,  it's so easy to appreciate everything he does as a playmaker and emergency point guard for this group. The Turkish wing/guard offered a ton for Philly in Sunday night's game, making excellent reads over the top and in the pick-and-roll to create easy looks for teammates. But when he air-balled a catch-and-shoot three in the first half, it was fair to wonder if it was going to be another one of those nights, an ice-cold showing that erases any goodwill he built up otherwise.

Thankfully for Korkmaz and his buddies, he got hot from the outside, even inspiring a fist pump out of Embiid at one point early in the second half. When shooters make shots, basketball teams tend to look a whole lot better.

One thing I have enjoyed a lot this year is seeing Korkmaz's ultra-effective pump fake start translating into different situations, including as an on-ball passer. He's more patient than he probably gets credit for, relatively effective at keeping defenders slightly off-kilter when he's the ballhandler, and that bought Sixers teammates an opportunity or two against the Spurs.

• Our long, national nightmare is finally over. Charlie Brown Jr. not only made a layup in Sunday night's game, he found a way to make more than one in the first quarter, breaking out of a funk around the rim and finding a way to contribute on offense. That makes all the difference in the world for him when you consider what a natural fit he has been on defense.

Sunday's game was one where they needed Brown, one of the only athletic defenders on the entire roster, healthy or not. With Matisse Thybulle still on the shelf, it was up to Brown to deal with Spurs backcourt standout Dejounte Murray, the head of the snake for San Antonio's offense. Brown may have been fortunate to see a few Murray layup attempts fall harmlessly off of the rim, but his activity and engagement was undeniable, which helped him make plays off-ball as well. Brown took a steal to the house as time wound down in the first half, sending the Sixers into the locker room on a high note.

Every time he's on the floor, Brown Jr. seems to find a way to leave his mark by simply playing hard. He was Philadelphia's most aggressive offensive rebounder against the Spurs, and he probably should have been rewarded even more handsomely than he was — the two-way wing caught an elbow to the head on one rebound chance, the foul going uncalled despite Brown hitting the deck immediately. Even still, he came down with some key second-chance opportunities for the Sixers, and the hometown kid is making the most of his shot.

•  Tyrese Maxey's effectiveness on low-efficiency shots doesn't change the fact that he tends to live on a steady diet of low-efficiency shots. He plays like a little man playing a big man's game, which you certainly appreciate when you see the amount of work he has put into his runners and floaters, but those are tough shots to live on as the backbone of your offense. Sunday night, Maxey's touch was off just enough to derail his night as a scorer.

But much like he has throughout the season, Maxey stuck with it in this game and ended up finding his groove as they got deeper into this game, mostly because he was given more freedom to attack off-the-dribble late in the game. Leading the second unit, Maxey's speed allowed him to blow by his own defender(s) and Spurs big man Jakob Poeltl, with Maxey making some beautiful finishes around the basket in the fourth.

Even when his own shot isn't falling, there were more signs of growth for Maxey and Embiid as a two-man combo, the younger guard getting more opportunities to run pick-and-roll or dribble handoffs with the franchise player. Perhaps Embiid is making Maxey look better than he actually is with his midrange mastery, but you can still see signs of growth out of the young guard, plays where he's keeping his dribble alive for a second more to set up a teammate.

• For most of Sunday's game, this was a relatively pedestrian effort from Tobias Harris, who was a background figure up until the fourth quarter of the game. But with the Spurs making a run and keeping this close early in the fourth quarter, Harris inspired visions of last season, going on a personal scoring run to keep the Sixers out in front. Not bad.

The Bad

• The main complaint coming out of this game is Philadelphia's inability to keep their men in front of them on the perimeter. It's not exactly breaking news that they are short on ball stoppers, but they were put in compromising positions the entire game because of how bad they were at preventing the initial penetration. Whether it was Joel Embiid or Andre Drummond attempting to protect the rim, Philly's big men had to try to succeed in two-on-ones all night long, and the Spurs won a lot of those battles, with Jakob Poeltl depositing plenty of open layups at the rim when the big had to step to a driving guard.

Is Embiid one of the best rim protectors on Earth? Yes. Does that matter when you're constantly asking him to blow up two-on-ones the entire game, instead of situationally? Of course not. There's only so much he can offer on that end without either wearing down physically or picking up unnecessary fouls. If you've noticed, Embiid has been playing with foul trouble relatively often this year, and he has often had to hold back on the defensive end in order to not earn a long stint on the bench next to Doc Rivers.

(While we're at it, I understand Doc Rivers trying to buy Embiid as much rest as he can in game and between games, but he waited too long to bring him back in on Sunday night. The Spurs began to feel themselves as they fought back against Philadelphia's backups early in the fourth quarter, and this ended up being a dogfight late instead of a garbage time battle between bench players. A miscalculation on his part.)

Whenever the Sixers end up making a Ben Simmons trade, this is a problem they simply have to fix. Balancing the need for more creative talent and defensive steel is going to be tough to accomplish in one trade, and I remain curious how Daryl Morey plans to do it, if a deal happens this season at all.

• If you don't think playing hard is a skill, I would ask you to juxtapose the nights of Isaiah Joe and Charlie Brown Jr. on the defensive end. While conceding that the latter is a better baseline defender with good athletic tools, Joe has no shortage of "want to" in him, which you can see as he fights to get through screens and stick to his man. Unfortunately, his fighting often gets him into trouble, with Joe picking up a bunch of cheap, dumb fouls in the process of trying to hound his man.

I still think there's a capable NBA rotation player in Joe, who had a solid offensive night against San Antonio. But you can see why there's some resistance to play him more often. A lot to sort out on defense.

• As much as people want to kill the coach whenever there's an opportunity, the turnover from the Sixers after the timeout in the final minute was basically all on Maxey. His cut was far too close to the sideline when they were setting up, and it led directly to the turnover that nearly let this game slip away. It's a play I'm sure the young guard would like to have back.

The Ugly

• I can't believe the NBA would schedule an evening game on a playoff football Sunday for a team based in Texas. The Spurs are already struggling to draw people to their games, you're just asking for people not to show up for this one.

• First officiating complaint of Sunday's broadcast showed up a minute in. Beyond parody.

But hey, at least the broadcast cut away while Sixers players were down and hurt on two separate occasions, so they had that going for them, which is nice.

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