March 08, 2022
Six games into the James Harden era, the Sixers still haven't lost a game with their new star and Joel Embiid both in the lineup. Even the loss without Harden came with a pretty big back-to-back asterisk, and it's hard not to get swept up in Sixers mania at the moment. They've become an elite offensive team with Harden in town, and that trend continued on Monday night, with Philadelphia dropping 121 points on a good Bulls team to complete the season sweep of Chicago.
Let's get into some good things coming out of that performance.
Late in a strong first half for Philadelphia's MVP candidate, Embiid laughed about a turnover committed by he and Harden, with Harden looking for Embiid on a pick-and-pop just as Embiid was vacating the spot. The two exchanged a few words around midcourt before the ensuing defensive possessions, ultimately dapping up and moving on with a better understanding of one another.
What exactly happened there?
"As I've been watching the last two games where I hadn't been myself, I saw that I've been hanging at the three-point line a lot, instead of living in the paint. So tonight I tried to make adjustments of short rolling," Embiid said Monday night. "When we had that turnover, I told him that tonight I'm just rolling to the basket. I don't want to pop, I don't want to stay at the three-point line, I want to either short roll or fully roll so it creates wide-open shots for other guys. Guys don't tend to leave me or help off of me, so it creates a lot of shots for other guys...tonight, I was trying to get back to myself and dominating like I've been doing all season."
Consider that final mission accomplished. Embiid has absolutely bludgeoned the Chicago Bulls all season, and the hit parade came to a close with another dominant effort on Monday night, with Embiid pouring in 43 points. Though Embiid was able to engineer a lot of those points (and some trips to the free-throw line) by himself, putting him in the action with Harden gave him most of his best opportunities of the night, putting the Bulls in a lot of no-win situations.
Monday's game was not a good one for Harden the scorer, with a 5-for-15 shooting performance ultimately not mattering much in the victory. Chicago's respect for Harden's game, on the other hand, never wavered throughout the night, with the Bulls throwing multiple players at a time at Harden to force the ball out of his hands. He's used to that sort of coverage, and so Harden is comfortable operating from almost any spot on the floor, waiting until his moment comes to find the possession's eventual scorer. What Embiid isn't used to is getting to attack the rim with little resistance in front of him, a sight that has become common with Harden in the mix.
Chicago ended a lot of plays last night with one of their bigs stuck in no man's land and Zach LaVine needing to try to stop Embiid at the rim. Even here, with Tristan Thompson sitting in drop coverage on the possession, he shades far enough toward Harden that neither Bulls player can contest the Embiid layup without committing a foul, allowing Embiid to score two relatively resistance-free points at the rim:
One of the side benefits to getting Embiid rolling downhill is the damage he can do on the offensive glass out of these sets, where he's not only moving toward the basket but often matched up with a much smaller opponent as they scramble to recover. He may have been fortunate to get away with offensive interference on this tip-in, but it's still a useful clip to show of Embiid getting some easy points by simply committing to his role in the action.
As we've been over many times in this space, Embiid's ability to score in the paint and pressure opponents there doesn't mean he should abandon the three-point line altogether. And naturally, Embiid's first make of the game was a spot-up three on an assist from Tyrese Maxey, going against the message he sent postgame. But his best work is certainly done closer to the basket, and his 16 free throws speak louder than any other statement from Monday. He is damn near impossible to stop when he is committed to attacking the rim.
There's a good case to be made that defense was the Sixers' calling card in the win over the Bulls, the first time you can really say that since Harden joined the team. You can chalk some of those defensive issues up to personnel, certainly, though No. 21 himself has also had some focus and effort issues on that end, sleepwalking through first halves to save himself for a haymaker down the stretch.
They needed Embiid dialed in from the start of this one, with LaVine and DeMar DeRozan both posing massive threats anytime they have the ball in their hands. Asking Embiid to simply play higher and be more engaged from the get-go did a lot of the heavy lifting — with their most important defensive player locked in from the start, there was a domino effect for the rest of the team, who held a good Bulls team down all night long.
Asking the bigs to come up higher on any given possession does come with some drawbacks, mainly in the rebounding department, where the Sixers are already in desperate need of some help. When Embiid is coming out past the three-point line to either slow a DeRozan type player down or force the ball out of their hands, he has to scramble back to get in a position to rebound if the ballhandler makes a quick decision. That ended up being a problem for Philly on Monday night, with the Sixers giving up 14 offensive rebounds to the Bulls.
That trade-off, frankly, is one they're going to have to live with. With Harden taking some of the workload out of Embiid's hands on offense, Embiid can reasonably be expected to pick up his play-to-play intensity on the other end, using his considerable defensive gifts to drag them toward respectability. It'll be a group effort, but the big man is who it starts with.
There are a lot of NBA shooters who dream of being as open as Tobias Harris has been for most of the shots Harden has created for him. To circle back to Embiid's point about rolling toward the rim and the impact it has for teammates, take a look at this pick-and-roll and the space it creates for Harris in the corner:
On the catch, the closest guy to Harris (DeRozan) has both feet in the paint, and you can see him grimacing a little at the predicament Harden has put the defense in. Unfortunately, these looks are basically being wasted by Harris at the moment. Harris got skunked from beyond the arc on Monday, and his shooting numbers have been an absolute disaster since the All-Star break: Harris has shot 7-for-26 from deep in that timeframe even with many of those looks looking as tantalizing as the one you see above.
There are moments when Harris seems to be in his own head out there, uncomfortable in the role he is now being asked to play for this group. Building a rhythm has proven harder for Harris with decreased time on the ball, and there's no credible argument to be made that he deserves more touches. The Sixers' offense has been elite as it gets with the offense flowing through the three-man group of Harden, Embiid, and Maxey, and there's little reason to disrupt that.
Doc Rivers has remained quietly confident in Harris' ability to bounce back, noting the same shot quality we can all see from the outside and Harris' overarching skill. He's certainly better than 27 percent from three as a general rule, but how much better is going to determine his offensive value for this group.
(A note of support for Harris — he did an excellent job of making DeRozan work on the defensive end on Monday night, and he has offered some strong defensive performances on that end since the break. His ability to guard big men is a slightly underrated trait depending on the matchup, as he showed when he frustrated Timberwolves center Karl-Anthony Towns in a recent meeting with Minnesota. If that's how he has to provide value to this group, so be it.)
What do you do with an offensive player who isn't a reliable shooter and can't do much dribbling? The answer to that question in Philadelphia is increasingly becoming, "Put him in an action with Harden." Thybulle is no exception to that rule, with Philadelphia's new point guard gift-wrapping buckets for Thybulle and punishing teams for fleeing too far from him on the way to the basket.
Monday, Thybulle spent more time looking like a traditional screen-and-roll player, an interesting wrinkle we'll likely see more of as he and Harden can work on their chemistry. Over the last couple of weeks, Harden has said many times over that his primary responsibility is to make life easier for every single player on the Sixers' roster, and he's aware of what they need to get out of Thybulle to take advantage of what he already provides for them on the defensive end.
"We all know that he gets his hands on a lot of basketballs," Harden said. "I think it's my job to help him a little bit offensively, just like you know, he helps us defensively, to where he can get some easy baskets and feel good about himself."
All four of Thybulle's baskets against the Bulls came from Harden assists, two of those with Thybulle rolling toward the hoop after screening Harden's man. It really is that easy playing next to this guy:
One of the funny things about covering Embiid — he often refuses to acknowledge how much he pays attention or cares about things outside of his own team, and then immediately gives away that he cares quite a bit about a given subject. Whether it's a race for MVP, a seeding battle in the Eastern Conference, or some other mini-rivalry he has elsewhere, Embiid watches a lot of basketball, including nights where he brings his phone to the podium to keep an eye on another game using League Pass.
So when Embiid offered a few thoughts about the season Nuggets center Nikola Jokic is having, his initial denial of interest faded quickly as Embiid gushed about another one of the league's best players.
"Nah," Embiid said when asked if he was paying attention to what Jokic has been doing, "but he's an amazing player. He's a monster, I saw what he was able to do last night, I was watching the game actually. I'm always watching, I'm watching every game."
(Just a quick interjection to point out how funny this is to me. We're going from "Nah" to "I'm watching every game" in the span of about 10 seconds.)
"What he's able to do on the basketball court, it really is crazy. From big man to big man, I'm happy that when you look at who is dominating the league and really who the best players are, you got really all big man. Whether it's Giannis, Jokic, [Kevin Durant's] not a big but he's seven feet, and it's also foreign guys. Foreign guys have really taken over, Luka [Doncic], it's great for us."
There's one major downside to point out with two centers battling in another race for the league's top individual honor — one of them is guaranteed to get shafted in another race where they both deserve recognition. All-NBA teams only allow one center on the ballot for each team, which means for the second consecutive season, one of Embiid or Jokic will get bumped from that team despite both of them turning in top-five (and really, top-two) seasons from any and all players in the league.
That said, the game's shift toward the three-point line and perimeter play did lead to some homogeny in team construction and style over the last decade, and watching the bigs steal some of that back with an absolute assault of the league over the last few years has been beautiful to watch. If we don't get to see Embiid vs. Jokic next Monday because of Philly's back-to-back or some other unforeseen factor, I am going to be pretty livid.
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