November 21, 2023
Bill Streicher/USA TODAY Sports
The Sixers took on the Cavaliers Tuesday night in their last game of In-Season Tournament Group Play.
The Sixers played host to the short-handed Cleveland Cavaliers — missing Donovan Mitchell, Caris LeVert and Isaac Okoro — Tuesday night in their fourth and final game of NBA In-Season Tournament Group Play, losing 122-119. Here is what stood out from the game Sixers head coach Nick Nurse described as a "must win:"
Batum has missed quite a bit of time since being traded to Philadelphia due to personal reasons, which he revealed on Sunday were related to health issues going on with his wife. He anticipates being back with the team on a full-time basis now, though, and that is a boon for the Sixers.
Batum is just the perfect role player. He is not just an excellent shooter, but a versatile one — he has an elite shot release in terms of quickness, can make spot-up threes and movement threes, is an intuitive cutter, a good passer and can handle the ball on offense. On defense, he gets after it, able to strap up against several positions and archetypes of players. For example, despite being 6-foot-8, his first assignment tonight was to chase Cleveland sharpshooter Max Strus as he ran around screens.
Batum can fill just about any role the Sixers need him to on either end of the floor. Nurse raved about it pregame.
"I've always admired Batum's game a lot," Nurse said. "He's just such a good basketball player in so many facets. He's willing to do anything his team needs him to do to win, and I think that kind of sums him up."
The Cavaliers scored 44 points in the paint in the first half alone, a gargantuan number that was almost double the Sixers' first half total. Jarrett Allen in particular converted finish after finish around the rim, while Darius Garland was able to spur the offense with his scoring and passing.
The Cavaliers also dominated the boards early, in part because they were able to get the consistent stops that the Sixers sorely lacked. It was a dominant showing from the Cavaliers, who despite being undermanned were able to leverage their size and strength advantages to bring a level of physicality that the Sixers did not look ready for.
Evan Mobley and Allen make for a formidable tandem down low. But Wednesday night, the challenge will be just as tough against Minnesota's Karl-Anthony Towns and Rudy Gobert. The Sixers may be a small team outside of Joel Embiid relative to the rest of the NBA, but that doesn't mean they can't play with more physicality.
Entering Tuesday night's action, Embiid led the NBA in scoring in the first and third quarters, while Maxey led the NBA in scoring in the second quarter. It is a fascinating example of Nurse's ability to let each one dominate in certain areas of the game and eventually coalesce into a dominant pairing.
This trend continued tonight, with Embiid scoring 10 points and Maxey scoring none in the first quarter, while in the second quarter, Embiid only scored two and Maxey poured in a dozen.
Ideally, a bit more balance here might be nice. But the general takeaway is certainly a positive one: Embiid and Maxey, the two stars of this team, are equally empowered to make their presences felt.
The Sixers struggled all night to keep up with the Cavaliers, in large part because they missed bunnies at the rim. There was no main culprit here — while De'Anthony Melton struggles the most at the rim on this team, Tobias Harris and even Maxey missed shots they almost always make as well. The biggest miss at the rim came at the end of overtime, when Maxey failed to convert a driving layup that would have given the Sixers the lead.
On a night when you clearly don't have your 'A-Game,' it is imperative to take advantage of the easy chances for points and stops. The Sixers failed to do that for most of this game, and that one of the biggest reasons why they lost.
The Sixers made some serious inroads on Cleveland's lead in the fourth quarter, got their crowd back into the game and made things tough for the Cavaliers, but they just did not have enough to get the job done.
The fact of the matter is they made too many mistakes, and in the end they paid for it. The margin of error was just a bit too slim for Embiid, Maxey, Harris and co., despite a valiant fourth quarter effort.
The Sixers have finished Group Play with a record of 2-2 and a point differential of +9, making it a difficult task for them to reach the Knockout Rounds, a single-elimination bracket of eight teams that will ultimately decide the winner of the NBA Cup.
Nurse and his players have been alert to the tournament and all of its intricacies since its inception, from how Group Play works to the point differential tiebreakers and everything in between.
Asked pregame Tuesday evening if the Sixers would factor in point differential being the key tiebreaker and continue to play their best players, even if the outcome of the game had been decided, Nurse said yes — despite the team being on the front end of a home-road back-to-back.
"Putting it all on this one," Nurse said. "Pitch your ace and pray for rain."
Unfortunately for Nurse and the Sixers, their ace in the hole wasn't enough — and with the 10-3 Minnesota Timberwolves on tap, tomorrow's forecast calls for clear skies.
