The West Coast swing of the Sixers' six-game road trip has come to an end — and the team is flying back across the country with a bad taste in its mouth. After notching a close win against the Utah Jazz and blowing out the Portland Trail Blazers, the team imploded down the stretch and blew a game to the Sacramento Kings before being throttled by the Golden State Warriors. Suddenly, a stretch which initially seemed like it could accelerate the team's long-awaited turnaround became just another 2-2 trip.

There still was a decent bit of action to be impressed by during the Sixers' four games on the West Coast, with two critical role players — Caleb Martin and Guerschon Yabusele— being the standout performers. In today's Friday film, let's take a look at some of the highlights from Martin, Yabusele and co. over the last week:

Dec. 28 @ Utah Jazz

Entering the season, nobody could have imagined how much Sixers head coach Nick Nurse would rely on Yabusele at any position, let alone as a small-ball center. But the 29-year-old has been brilliant in every role this season, including serving as a genuine floor-spacer at the five.

The Sixers found themselves trailing by five points early in the fourth quarter with Joel Embiid on the bench and called a play for Yabusele to screen for Tyrese Maxey. Yabusele sets a solid screen, enabling Maxey to turn and fire from beyond the arc and trim the lead. On the very next possession, knowing Utah would be especially fearful of another Maxey triple, the Sixers ran the same action — only this time, Yabusele popped, drifting back towards the three-point line. Maxey found him for a wide open three:

This quick, two-possession sequence gives a glimpse at not just how versatile of a player Yabusele is, but how versatile a team can be with its actions and counters when their center is a reliable spot-up three-point shooter.

However, that is not all Yabusele can do. He is a heady passer and a strong finisher inside. But he also battles. Yabusele never takes a play off, and moments like these have become commonplace for him:

Yabusele took a massive 7-footer to task for not being locked in, and it resulted in an extra possession for the Sixers. If this team gets to participate in playoff basketball, Yabusele is the sort of player who has swung games with just a few hustle plays down the stretch.

Briefly circling back to Maxey and Embiid, the two All-Stars were particularly dominant with their two-man actions in Utah, and while that does create an abundance of scoring opportunities for those two players, it also generates chances for role players to find holes in the defense and pounce. That's exactly what Kelly Oubre Jr. does here:

Oubre, who missed both of the Sixers' losses during this trip with a left hand sprain — his first two missed games of the season ‚ has turned himself into a terrific cutter.

MORE: Sixers-Jazz recap

Dec. 30 @ Portland Trail Blazers

Martin played well on opening night for the Sixers back in October before enduring a slump lasting nearly two months and spanning several injuries, both of the nagging sort and ones with more significance. He had become overburdened on both ends of the floor as the Sixers were ravaged by injuries early in the season, and lost his usual spark as he tried to battle through those physical ailments. It made for a rough 20 games or so before the Sixers finally elected to give him some time off in hopes of accelerating his recovery and enabling the return of the player the Sixers believed they were getting when they inked Martin to a four-year contract over the summer.

Ever since Martin knocked down three triples on Dec. 23, he has been playing at his absolute best for the Sixers — including, of course, his career-high seven made threes in Boston on Christmas — and while he has been incredibly hot from beyond the arc, his impact has extended beyond that.

Leading up to the start of the season, Nurse spoke extensively about weaponizing Martin on the offensive glass. He is relentless in his pursuit of rebounds and, like Yabusele, has a knack for catching opposing players sleeping. The Sixers hope to see plays like this from Martin on a regular basis now that he seems closer to peak condition:

Another play from this game which was too good to let slip through the cracks: Maxey, whose defensive breakout has continued, nabbing another steal, getting out in transition and finishing an and-one layup after creating separation with a nasty dribble move:

Maxey is second in the NBA in steals per game as of this writing (2.2), and while all of those steals are obviously impactful in that they end opposing possessions, steals from Maxey are particularly valuable due to his ability to immediately get out in transition offense where he is so lethal.

MORE: Sixers-Blazers recap

Jan. 1 @ Sacramento Kings

Dropping this one was a crushing blow for the Sixers, who without Embiid were the far better team for about 42 minutes. They just could not land a knockout blow during that time, allowing the Kings to hang around until the Sixers' offense cratered and watched Sacramento end the game on a stunning 15-0 run. This game will be remembered for Paul George's performance — 30 points across three brilliant quarters to begin the night and a brutal fourth quarter in which the nine-time All-Star failed to score.

Martin, however, was particularly excellent in the game, doing everything the Sixers needed of him on both ends of the floor. He scored 12 points, grabbed seven rebounds (three offensive), dished out three assists, nabbed three steals and blocked a shot. He and Maxey were the only Sixers who brought it in the fourth quarter; the team's collapse may have started sooner if not for those two players.

The value of Martin's recent stretch of excellent three-point shooting extends beyond the points scored when the ball goes in the basket on those shots. It becomes a critical bullet point on the scouting report, and suddenly Martin is able to attack aggressive closeouts and create advantage situations for the Sixers. That is what he does here, and capitalizes by making a strong drop-off pass to Andre Drummond under the basket:

Ultimately, though, Martin will always be known for his tenacious defense across multiple positions. The Sixers are comfortable putting Martin on nearly any offensive player, and in Sacramento he spent much of the night toggling between guarding All-Stars De'Aaron Fox, perhaps the fastest player in the NBA, and DeMar DeRozan, a brilliant manipulator of defenders who often bullies his way into optimal looks. Martin proved to be the Sixers' best option against DeRozan in particular, as his strength and discipline came in handy on plays like this:

Martin does not always force a ton of turnovers as a defender, but he rarely is found out of place and often prevents himself from biting on shot fakes. There is a give and take involved — and sometimes more risk-taking should be encouraged — but it did make him a particularly strong option to handle the DeRozan assignment. The only issue was that with Oubre sidelined, the Sixers did not have any great options to defend Fox.

MORE: Sixers-Kings recap

Jan. 2 @ Golden State Warriors

In a story singularly focused on highlights, there is not a ton of material to use from this one, the Sixers' most lopsided loss of the year in which they felt out of the game within minutes and never mustered any sort of competitive run, instead watching as Stephen Curry put on yet another brilliant three-point shooting display.

Let's do our best: before Curry erupted in the second half, he was stonewalled on this play by the larger, stronger and longer Martin, who forced the greatest shooter to ever live into an awkward attempt in the paint which was never even close:

Martin's natural ability to stay down against all sorts of fakes is a massive asset as a defender.

During the TNT broadcast of Sixers-Warriors, sideline reporter Jared Greenberg shared an anecdote, reporting that Curry told him that as Yabusele put himself back on the radar of NBA teams with a stellar run during the 2024 Olympics as one of the stars for Team France, Curry was wondering how Yabusele had been out of the NBA for so long. And against all odds, Yabusele earned an NBA roster spot with the Sixers and is quickly solidifying his standing as a quality rotation piece in the most competitive basketball league in the world.

Yabusele and Embiid might have been the only players on the Sixers to even approach an average game for their standards on Thursday night, as most of the roster shrunk in San Francisco. Yabusele scored 11 early points to keep the Sixers theoretically alive, and two of them came in impressive fashion.

This Sixers possession was going absolutely nowhere, and the ball found Yabusele in the corner with five seconds left on the shot clock. He went into old-school bully ball mode, bruising his way to the rim before stepping through and laying the ball up. The amount of separation Yabusele created with just a quick bump of Jonathan Kuminga is incredible:

Yabusele, the only Sixer to appear in all 32 games this season, is up to averages of 9.8 points and 5.1 rebounds per game in his first year with the organization.

MORE: Sixers-Warriors recap

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