The Sixers needed every 48 minutes to survive a bad Pistons team, but in the end they would have a 114-110 victory on the road thanks to another 30+ points from Joel Embiid.
Here’s what I saw.
The good
• The Pistons decided much of the evening that they were lucky to play a single cover against Embiid. I do not know what their advanced scouts have been watching this season (maybe not much!), But it was clearly not the best strategy to delay Philly’s MVP candidate.
Embiid sometimes ran through Pistons players on Saturday night, forcing smaller defenders to wrap, chop or shake him at his shot attempts while wishing himself to the release zone. He easily got rid of Mason Plumlee, the former Sixers’ big man Jahlil Okafor, and yielded another 20+ points in another first half, bullying Detroit while barely sweating.
In the past, it felt like Embiid’s best games had to come when the Sixers did almost nothing but play through him. He and his teammates found a better way by bouncing favorable matches when Embiid had them but did not live or die with him, creating something out of the mail.
I’m in camp thinking that it does not really matter how well Embiid plays or not if he is available for rugby, because those matches are never going to take place in the playoffs. That said, it’s a testament to the improved form he is in that he was able to get out and dominate the way he did Saturday night. The shots did not fall to him in the piece, but Embiid made up for it by playing an outrageous defense on the edge in the final minutes and sniffing out several prospective buckets for Detroit.
Even if we set it aside, at the moment it’s easy for Embiid to set 30+, and it’s not something you should take for granted.
• Was it one good quarter that Ben Simmons needed to get his season going? He looked like a whole other player in the first half against Detroit after the strong finish against Boston, and eventually worked on the look that the Sixers forced him all season.
Nowhere was it clearer than on the low block, where Simmons made smaller Pistons defenders absolutely cruel on every occasion. Movements we have not yet seen, such as false and running brackets, are suddenly pulled out of the toolbox.
And it was a team effort – Embiid was apparently aware of the need to keep Simmons going, and on several occasions removed space in the paint so Simmons could go to work. Even when Detroit Simmons tried to pick up in the backfield to stop him from building up steam, his running mate was ready to release him:
That’s why it’s frustrating to see people happy that he’s barely picking up the statistical thresholds for triples. Simmons is absolutely capable of filling the score while playing with the ball in his hands with an attacking mentality. In fact, it becomes easier for him to find open teammates if teams have to respect him as a scorer.
As has usually been the case the past two seasons, it was also Simmons who took the lead in the effort section while hitting his butt in defense, while many other players from a road-to-back second night -road dragged. Rivers still seems reluctant to use him as the ‘best player stopper’, perhaps because he’s not trying to make Simmons disappear with the No. 1 opposition every night, but once he loosened up on Detroit’s Jerami Grant, it was basically a turnaround. for Grant’s night. Simmons just bumped him up and down on the floor.
(And hey, big free throws in the tight time for Simmons, who’s always had trouble. It’s good to see him calm and satisfied when it counts.)
• Seth Curry, who has not made a single three-point hit, was shocking to watch, but he is such a calming influence on the floor that it’s easy to see why the lineups that include him are cooking this season. I suppose it’s the trade – off of his occasional hesitation to rip it deep – Curry is measured at all times, and it takes almost exclusively high quality shots and never misses an opportunity for a teammate to look better not.
His skill level definitely helps. While the big boys open a path for him with screens, Curry gets just enough to the basket and threatens it from the middle line to keep everyone honest. Very pleasant player to watch on offense.
• I mean it mostly as a compliment – the Sixers gave just that little bit for about half of this game, but they now have the ability to get it over the game, even if they do not have their best stuff . It felt like the kind of win that a younger Sixers team would never close, mostly because it was an all-or-nothing kind of outfit.
During a long season, a loss here or there against a lesser opponent is not going to kill you. But Philly has made the habit of giving away far too many of these games in the past, struggling to find the middle ground of intensity between ‘National TV Game Against a Claimant’ and ‘Saturday Night Against the Pistons on Backup NBC’s Sports channel. “You do not need your best stuff to beat Detroit. But you have to make a professional effort, and Embiid and Simmons are finally starting to see how to make it happen.
(On the other hand, it is not great that the stars had to play in the second half of a rugby game until deep into the crunchy time.)
The bad
• Good, so you can not actively pay attention to pieces of the game and avoid criticism completely. There were some ugly pieces of this game for Philly, with defenses from the perimeter penetrating all too easily in the first half of the game, and it would be nice to see the Sixers blow out a team like this early to to let guys rest. in the second half. Oh dear.
• Doc Rivers will have to figure out exactly what he wants to do with his bench, because the pieces look pretty separate from each other at the moment. Between the reinstatement of Furkan Korkmaz and the natural volatility for rugby players, the Sixers bench was an absolute mess against Detroit for the first 24 minutes.
If Rivers has decided to stick with the original starting lineup, Shake Milton and Tyrese Maxey should be the first two players off the bench. The latter seems to have lost his place to Korkmaz, a guy Rivers trusted to date back in camp, and it’s going to be an up-and-coming experience based on Korkmaz’s play so far this year. Maxey recently did not burn down the nets exactly, but he was the only player on the bench to succeed in the first half, a striking stat driving home how bad they were.
I’m no big fan of Mike Scott, but the combinations were a little bad because Rivers is working on the absence of their backup four. Lineups with Dwight Howard, Matisse Thybulle and Simmons, for example, are a spacious nightmare, even if you can talk yourself into their defensive power.
• Embiid focused a little too much on winning the foul in the second half, and Pistons rookie Isaiah Stewart did a great job of playing disciplined defense once Plumlee disappeared from the game, leading led to some ugly attempts by Mr. Embiid a crunch time. Hard to argue with a man who regularly catches defenders with their hand in the cookie, but he may not be his only way of attacking in big moments.
• If the Sixers see an upgrade looking forward to the playoffs / second half of the season, a fifth front-runner replacing Danny Green or moving him into a bankroll is the most obvious step. He knows what to do, and he mostly stays within the role, but his body seems to be currently trying to catch up with his mind. Even if it’s something like a pump on a jumper or an attempt to impose after a clever cut, Green just seems out of step.
You can sell me on the idea that he is doing well, and he is a man who is especially prone to dips the second night of a back-to-back, because he was part of a constant deep playoff battle in his career. But there have been some ugly nights this season.
• Doc Rivers told reporters before the game that the three-man squad of Embiid / Harris / Simmons was hesitant to play, and Tobias Harris played like a guy who could probably use a free night. He sharpened his decision-making this season and he continued on defense on Saturday, but he had three or four head-scratchers against the Pistons, who were cut out of his game at an early stage this year.
No reason to argue about it, but still a difficult one.
• While we were working on mind-boggling plays, Matisse Thybulle was a one-time crew member in the absolute worst way possible. There was a possession in the first half where he had several opportunities to move the ball to an open teammate who might have the chance to do something about it, and instead continued to blow the air out of the ball. dribble before finally trying to hit a wild setup nothing but glass. Know your role, young man.
The Ugly
• Dwight Howard was called for an offense on a play where he had a piece of his shorts ripped off. Picking up a technical violation after I have complained about it seems pretty bad to me, and therefore I have to send a complaint in the direction of the officials.
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