The Sixers didn't have their new additions available, but it didn't matter much in their sleepy 100-87 win over the rebuilding Oklahoma City Thunder.
Here's what I saw.
The Good
• Joel Embiid's attempts to add equipment to play in always seem to go poorly enough that he immediately goes back to the basics. Historically, that has meant leaving a headband behind in the locker room at halftime, but Embiid's 3/11 first half did not inspire him to ditch a pearly white shooting sleeve in the locker room this time around.
Even with the big man's touch evading him out of the gate, he remained one of Philadelphia's only effective options against Oklahoma City. Embiid piled up free throws early in this one, marching to the line eight times in the first half to sustain his offense, and he eased himself to a first-half double double by simply being bigger and stronger than anybody the Thunder put on the floor. It's something we have noted over the years and it doesn't make it any less true now: it pays to be a mountain of a man in a sport where the goal of the game is 10 feet in the air.
Where you really felt that size advantage was on the defensive end, where Embiid's shot-blocking was reminiscent of his early days in the league. It's more likely you're going to see him altering a shot than blocking one on any given possession, but it felt like Embiid was a threat to send a layup attempt into the fifth row on about 50 percent (all numbers approximate) of Oklahoma City's attempts in the paint. Perhaps that's a preview of what we can expect when he doesn't have to do almost everything on the offensive end, with Embiid raising his game even further on defense once James Harden can take some of the scoring burden away.
What a game like this does is drive home Embiid's value as an all-around player. His shooting touch wasn't there for basically the entire game, but he was still able to exert his influence and give the Sixers a strong foundation to build off of for most of the night. Putting up comical box score numbers is just sort of normal at this point.
• If anyone is of the mindset that Tyrese Maxey is going to be less important with James Harden in the mix, I don't think they've been paying much attention to this team. What has made Maxey's second season so encouraging is that he has been able to produce big moments and take a leap forward despite rarely being a central component in the game plan. He is learning on the job and has deferred to older teammates quite a bit, and that hasn't stopped him from putting together sensational highlights and mini scoring barrages that swing games in Philadelphia's favor.
Take his flurry toward the end of the first half on Friday night, with the Sixers in the midst of a dreary performance against the Thunder down multiple rotation players. Maxey was only involved in the game in fits and starts, but the final minute had his handprints all over it, with Maxey putting together three quick moves in the span of about a minute: a pull-up jumper from mid-range, a layup in transition, and a quick move to score on an inbounds play as the half expired, pulling Philadelphia out in front by five.
In another half where their lack of pace loomed large, Maxey's injection of speed stood out big time. And they're still going to need that when Harden arives, lest they play every game at the snail's pace those two can be prone to. Maxey is a human shock to the system, and that will continue to be a critical piece of this team.
Frankly, this game was crying out for an even bigger serving of Maxey, which we never really got, but he did plenty with the chances he had. Story of his season, IMO.
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• Matisse Thybulle sticking around may be one of the only things preventing the Sixers from going off of a perimeter defensive cliff. James Harden is an upgrade over Seth Curry defensively in the sense that he's a lot bigger, but the rest of this group is painfully short on stoppers, which will leave Joel Embiid (and his backups) in a lot of tough spots.
Friday night, he wasn't locking anybody in particular down, but he was disruptive as hell in passing lanes, taking a couple of pick-sixes (or I guess, pick-twos) to the house by himself after anticipating where Oklahoma City wanted to go with the ball. He's one of a select few guys in the league that consistently makes it fun to watch a perimeter defender, and the way he covers ground is just special. If the computer in a 2K game made some of the plays he does, you'd start cursing at the game and accusing the AI of cheating.
For that reason, I'm still betting on him to remain in their starting/closing five despite their need for shooting around Embiid and Harden. It will probably swing back and forth based on the game, but Thybulle at least have the allure of something special on one end. Danny Green, as much as I have appreciated his game for a long time, is overextended as a stopper these days.
• His shooting was atrocious for most of this game, but it certainly seems like Georges Niang is one of the guys who is going to be a beneficiary of the James Harden experience. Stick him in the corner and he will fire away from deep whenever the opportunity comes, and Niang did a nice job of beating OKC closeouts on Friday night, creating a couple of baskets for teammates in addition to making some nice moves toward the rim for his own offense.
The Bad
• The Sixers did not exactly fire on all cylinders offensively in this game, which probably should have been expected based on the changes to the roster. Removing Seth Curry from the lineup with no immediate replacement took Philadelphia's safety valve away from them, leaving them with a lot of questions to answer on that end of the floor.
Perhaps this is reductive, but this game seems like it called for a lot more Tyrese Maxey running the show. He's going to have less responsibility on-ball moving forward, but it's not like the Sixers ran a different style of offense to prep him for the role he's going to play alongside James Harden. This was a similar story as we have seen play out in other games this season, with Maxey uninvolved and off to the side on certain possessions for no real reason. As the Sixers are going to find out soon, sometimes you just need to give the guy who can dribble the ball. Basketball isn't always super complicated.
• Let's start with the niceties — Shake Milton being back in the lineup is a good thing for the Sixers, improving their depth by adding another guy who (theoretically) can dribble and shoot. Unfortunately, Milton looked every bit like a guy who has not played since early January, flubbing some simple opportunities around the basket and looking out of place on the floor. Stepping on the sideline is fairly common for shooters on the wing in transition, but Milton might have been further out than anybody I have ever seen when he was called for that infraction on a first-half play.
The good news for Milton and the Sixers is that Rivers didn't ask him to prop up the team on his own, mostly putting him in lineups alongside Tyrese Maxey or at least in setups where they had Joel Embiid on the floor, easing his burden on his first night back.
Okay, well, that was true until the beginning of the fourth quarter, when Rivers left Milton out there to drown and the Thunder chipped into Philadelphia's lead. Old habits die hard, I suppose.
In any case, Doc Rivers suggested before the game that staggering might become a more regular part of their gameplan once James Harden is here, and while I'm going to have to actually see that regularly to believe it, that will ultimately benefit Milton, who is miscast as a solo ballhandler but tends to look pretty good when the game is simplified and he doesn't have to do the heavy lifting by himself. He deserves some time to get settled in.
(Another thing worth noting: Milton absolutely showed the burst and handle to beat guys off the dribble in his first game back, which is a good sign after a long layoff. Smoking a bunch of layups probably isn't as important as his ability to beat guys.)
• Some games simply don't have juice and don't matter very much. This is probably the best example of such a game, with a bad team in town and the player everybody wants to see still making his way to Philly. It wasn't a great performance, but it got the job done, and that will be enough with the team staring down the final stretch before the trade deadline. As long as they have gas for that final push, that's what matters.
The Ugly
• We had a front-row seat for over half of a season on Andre Drummond, who produced his fair share of lowlights despite a good run behind Joel Embiid. That said, Paul Reed topped them all with a sequence early in the second quarter, turning what should have been another defensive highlight into an excuse for Doc Rivers to stick him on the bench and never think about him again.
(As someone who has to watch and write about these games no matter how mundane the stakes are, I absolutely appreciate moments like these. Without a bit of slapstick comedy, you're not going to get through an 82-game season alive.)
The good news for Mr. Bball is that outside of this moment, Reed showed exactly why he deserves a shot to get those minutes behind Embiid. His activity was off the charts, with Reed pestering the Thunder on the offensive glass and doing a nice job of keeping Philadelphia together on defense against a spread-out, small-ball look for the Thunder. You can't question his competitiveness and his defensive commitment, and as was the case when he played early in the season, Reed (mostly) played with discipline on offense, sticking to his role instead of jacking up any crazy shots.
But coaches, especially veteran coaches like Rivers, don't tend to have a lot of time for their backup big men doing things like that dunk attempt. Maybe the Drummond experience softened Rivers a bit, and I hope Reed gets a chance to put this one in the rearview. They have no choice but to give young guys a chance at the five right now, and if Reed can play credible defense there, his path to a real future role becomes a lot clearer.
• Every time Joel Embiid tries to wear a new piece of gear for a game, half of the fun for me is waiting to see how quickly he's going to get rid of it. After a 2/7 start from the field, I was surprised he even made it to halftime without abandoning it. Don't expect to see it again soon.
• That was, and I don't say this lightly, one of the most boring games you will ever sit through. Let us never speak of it again.
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