The Sixers nearly blew up a 20+ point lead in the second half, but Bradley Beal’s 60 points were not enough to stop Philly from scoring a 141-136 victory over the Wizards.
Here’s what I saw.
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The good
• Philadelphia’s offense has been a treat to watch so far this season. Sure, there are possessions where their inexperience shines through together and they look like a team that has not got a proper training camp. But an average ride across the floor is fun for Philly this season to watch, something I could not imagine when we looked at a team starting four different players who want the ball in the post.
While some (okay, many) of their success on Wednesday night was due to the fact that Washington was a dump for the defense, these guys are just playing a big basketball brand. The ball rarely holds, there is much less wasted dribbling and possessions that got stuck, and even if certain guys have it going, they are still looking for plays to the benefit of the group.
Take, for example, Seth Curry, who absolutely set the game on fire and never conceded in the first half, dropping 20 points in the first two quarters. Even in the midst of his heater, there were opportunities for him to dial his own number and let it fly that he passed to hunt for a better shot for Tobias Harris or Danny Green.
(I’m divided over Ben Simmons’ decision to reward Embiid for running down the floor in the first half. Curry was wide open on the wing and felt it, so no one who believes he should get the ball , with whom I will not argue., but you must continue to encourage the big guys as they run.)
They live by the mantra of their head coach, who does not care how they score and who scores as long as they put points on the board.
Curry really deserves a spotlight for his game on Wednesday and the insane numbers he is putting up to start the year. He’s going to come back to earth absolutely at some point – no one shoots 50+ percent out of three at this kind of volume for an entire season – but man forces opposing defenses to make really difficult decisions.
On Wednesday night, he turned in Philadelphia’s unlikely approach in the fourth quarter and shook off a quiet third period to lead the Sixers on the points ladder and capitalize on the visitors’ leaky defense. If anything, the Sixers would have to make sure he got the ball more for him, with Curry going open for a few swing passes that never got in his way.
The only criticism I have of him is the same as I had during the first series: it’s good when he’s playing a little more selfish. Being a first man on the team is a good thing, but no one will be upset if one of the best shooters in the league throws some questionable shots in the middle of a heater.
• Joel Embiid was planning to be a performer at the start of the match on Wednesday night, and missed his first six strokes and finished several possessions in an almost comical way. After returning from the bench, he was given the opportunity to shoot a technical free throw, and that was apparently all that was needed to change the night for the better.
Embiid was in the zone five times in a row and combined the pace he flashed in the first quarter with the killer instinct he had in single coverage. This dunk on Thomas Bryant was just disrespectful:
Embiid would come up with 15 points when the first half was over, and it was a much more typical night for him on both sides once he found his foot in the attack.
It was his addition to the game in a difficult time that ultimately really got Philly to the top. The Sixers hung on to a wire after the Wizards finally punished them for not killing the game, and Embiid provided some stability on both sides of the floor.
The big man’s improved fitness level showed up when it mattered most, with Embiid dominating in the paint and still calling in the energy for a giant transition block in the final minutes of the game. He was not the only man to produce any imagination on Wednesday, but before that there was echo of games, with Embiid feeling like the only thing between the Sixers and a total collapse.
There were not many rebounds to be gained on an evening with this very hot shooting, so his line did not look like a typical Embiid evening, but it was another dominant effort. The riot continues.
• Shake Milton was undoubtedly the player of the (albeit short) pre-season and put on a show on the opening night, but over the past few weeks he has been shooting the ball very hard. Milton came into the game with a depth of 27.3 percent and bounced back in front of Philly’s rugby player, a welcome sight with their best player struggling early.
The third-year guard let himself go the old-fashioned way – at the free throw line and with the intermission, turning and turning inside the arc using Dwight Howard to clear a path. Milton was the only man who did not completely fall off the bench on Wednesday, that’s the nicest thing you can say about someone from the second unit.
The bad
• It was interesting that Rivers was never interested in making Ben Simmons wait for Bradley Beal.
Five years ago I could see that I wanted to stick him on a man like Russell Westbrook, when he was an athletic freak who could harm your defense. The former MVP is nowadays more of a paper tiger, a man who still inflicts damage but is often more likely to shoot his team out of a game.
I could even understand the initial decision to have Danny Green on him in a similar match. But it quickly became clear that the Green-Thybulle combination offered very little resistance, and what’s the best use for your first-team All-Defense man than to have him track down a man who shoots out the lights?
Despite 32 points from the first half from Beal, Rivers did not move, and Beal continued to boil in the second half, scoring the 50-point with a few minutes left in the third quarter. He did it in every possible way by hitting hits on tries, shooting on the tracks and looking for some free throws – it was an offensive display for a man whose team was surpassed most of the night .
Philly comfortably outperformed the Wiz for a while, but the strategy seemed particularly pointless because Washington did not really have anything (or anyone else), and the Sixers apparently had a ready-made solution to the problem. Would you rather not risk your chances to say: Rui Hachimura beats you, a man who sometimes guarded Simmons on Wednesday?
The Sixers did nothing to stop the onslaught, and if it were not for the combination of hot shooting and Washington’s terrible defense, they might have paid for it. Washington slipped back into a game in which they did not start, and the decision not to make Beal’s life more difficult will be a big conversation after the game. At least he eventually got cold in the fourth, and if you’re charitable, Rivers might have just tried to tire him out in the first 36 minutes.
(By the way, to hold on is a kind of Doc Rivers MO, for better or worse. Get used to its kind of stuff.)
• Even though Simmons is being told about the assignment issue, he did not do much to change the game in the second half, as it was starting to get out of control. Rivers who like him from the Beal command are one thing, but his offensive limitations raised their ugly head after a first half where he was actually an attacker.
In the first 24 minutes (and in the last eight with Embiid), Simmons was able to control the pace, both in the half and in the transition, and responded to several Washington buckets with quick scores the other way around. He was active on and off the ball and created for himself and others. Then halftime struck, and the openings that were there closed a little, and Simmons’ lack of ingenuity with half the ball with the ball in his hands slowed Philly’s offense to a crawl.
I give him the credit for this – he helped Philly get it together in a difficult time with a great combination game with Embiid, and rediscovered his form when they needed it most. But again, I thought he was a passenger too much of the game.
• The defense of Philadelphia as a team was not that good except for the Beal show, and it was the first night where I think you can say that the effort really affected them. Let rotations, reluctance to fight through a screen, and worst of all, a few plays where the Wizards just surpassed them in the transition and picked up easy scores for their effort.
In front of a rugby player and against a team that they apparently know how to execute in a difficult time, I’m not going to read too much into it. But I was a little bit interested in how they would fare against high-level guards if they got to the tighter part of their schedule, and that was not exactly a good point in that regard.
• The biggest culprits in the lost lead were just about everyone on the bench. Outside of Milton, just about every other man in the second unit at sea was lost to the Wizards. Dwight Howard was ineffective on defense, Tyrese Maxey never had the ball enough to do much with it, and Matisse Thybulle was the unfortunate victim of the Beal show, trying his damnation and falling short anyway.
And it was with Rivers staggered its lineup a bit more due to injuries in the turn. Tobias Harris and Simmons were the guys who spent time with a bench-heavy look, and it was not enough to push them up. Ugly evening for the supporting cast.
The Ugly
• Fair warning: I wrote the paragraphs below before the Sixers choked the biggest lead for the Wizards, so yes, there are definitely more negative things than that after the abysmal defense effort.
If the only real complaint you can make by a team in their first eight games is that you want to see them prove themselves against a “real” competition, you know they are starting well.
Over the next week, they will be tested. Thursday’s game against Brooklyn is not as exciting with Kevin Durant, but the game is followed by a meeting with Denver and Nikola Jokic, the exciting Atlanta Hawks, and a few against Miami Heat’s Jimmy Butler. Things are going to get a little more interesting soon, and I welcome the chance to rate this team against higher caliber opponents.
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