The Sixers looked set for a fifth defeat in five games without Joel Embiid this season on Sunday night. The script was easy and familiar to write.
Then, with their All-Star center sidelined by the back tightness, the team managed a tremendous turnaround in the fourth quarter, coming back from a 20-point handicap in the second half to beat the Pacers at the Bankers Life Fieldhouse 119-110.
Ben Simmons had 21 points, seven assists, six rebounds, four steals and two blocks. Tobias Harris scored 27 points and eight rebounds in the victory for the Sixers, who improved to 15-6 this season.
Harris scored 10 points on 4 out of 5 shots in the final period and now apparently has a nickname inspired by the Chappelle Show.
“When Tobias came into the game, I went to him,” said Dwight Howard. “I said, ‘Hey, don’t settle. No one can watch you on the floor. Don’t settle. Go get buckets. ‘And he did it. He did not calm down, attacked the basket, pressed the hoop, pressed the referees and made great moves and great moves. I call him Prince Harris, because in the last game it was ‘Game, blouses’ against the Lakers. So, now he’s Prince Harris. “
The Sixers will return to action on Wednesday with a match against the Hornets, the last match of their three-game trip. Here are the remarks about their victory on Sunday night:
Bradley starts, Simmons sees time in the center
Tony Bradley had his first season start, as coach Doc Rivers preferred to keep Howard with the team’s second unit.
The great fourth-year man had a challenging mission against an All-Star in Domantas Sabonis, but he held on to open the game, in part because the Sixers were lucky that Sabonis missed a few open pick-and-pop jumpers. Still, Bradley looked solid enough and didn’t seem to do much harm, although Indiana exposed his lack of foot speed a little more after the break.
The Sixers’ collective energy and general willingness to play was not an issue the way they had been in the Monday night loss to the Pistons, and they jumped to an 8-0 lead. The team’s first pitches in Friday’s game against the Timberwolves resurfaced when Indiana made a 14-2 run and the Sixers missed 12 of the first 17 field goal attempts.
Perhaps looking to see if another strategy could change the momentum of the game, Rivers placed Simmons in the center in the second half. Although the lineup did not go badly, the Sixers were unable to establish clear advantages at either end of the court. Rim protection and a general lack of internal defense are still an obvious deficiency, one that Sabonis exploited with a deep seal and paint finish against Harris.
As a change of pace or option in situations where Howard is especially unsuitable for playing, it makes sense that Rivers wants to try Simmons in the five. At the moment, however, it is not a magical solution.
“I loved it, but we’re just not organized, honestly,” said Rivers. “(Assistant coach) Dave Joerger, we were literally crazy about the things we saw that we couldn’t do with (Simmons) in the five. And it’s a shame. We just didn’t have time to practice.
“In the fourth half, Dave grabs me and says, ‘I don’t care what we do in these (next) two days of practice, we go with Ben at five for at least 10 minutes.’ We probably spend five minutes all year on this. We just didn’t have enough time to work on it. There are things that I saw tonight that I think we can be very effective at. “
Bench rises large in the room
Howard was an active rebound and physical screener as usual, although free-throw shots remain a weakness for the 35-year-old. After a 5-by-12 night on the foul line, he hit 48.4% of his free throws this season. He finished with 11 points and 15 rebounds in 25 minutes.
On those nights without Embiid, the Sixers could certainly use special efforts from their complementary players. It didn’t look like that would happen on Sunday, as Danny Green and Seth Curry agreed to shoot 6 of 17.
Matisse Thybulle’s defense was not as brilliant in Sunday’s first half as in the last games. During his initial pass, he was beaten by Brogdon and, unable to climb on a ball screen, granted a three-point pull-up to guard Pacers.
Furkan Korkmaz lost his individual clash against Doug McDermott in the first half, failing to track him off the ball on several occasions.
However, Thybulle and Korkmaz made several important plays during the Sixers’ wave in the fourth period, including Thybulle taking control over Aaron Holiday, blocking a layup attempt by TJ McConnell and turning a theft into a quick attack by Korkmaz three. Thybulle’s elite ability to force twists helps open the door to these types of unlikely twists.
The young wing duo closed the game and played essential roles in the savage return of the Sixers. Korkmaz scored 17 points, the best of the season, and Thybulle had four steals and two blocks.
Searching for stops, finding them late
Whether or not the best post-game player in the league is available, it is difficult to win games in which the opponent scores 95 points in three quarters. What went wrong for the Sixers’ defense for most of the game? Embiid’s absence is the obvious answer, along with strong games by Brogdon and Sabonis.
Schematically, the Sixers had much better luck in the fourth period with a 2-3 zone that gave Indiana trouble. The team did well to create turnovers from that area and continued to compete a lot, even facing a big deficit.
Rivers and the Sixers deserve a lot of credit for changing the defense and executing so effectively with a look they haven’t used often this season.
Dan Burke, defensive coordinator for the Sixers and longtime assistant to the Pacers, raised the idea of using a zone before the game.
“It’s funny, Dan reminisced about the game last year when I was with the Clippers, much like where we were lost, we went to the zone and won the game,” said Rivers. “And we were talking about it before the game. He said, ‘I know it’s a different team, but it affected us in Indiana last year.’ He said: ‘If we have problems tonight, let’s go ahead.’ ”
Although the Sixers’ success when Embiid plays matters more than their fights before Sunday, when he sat down, the fact that they won a victory without him and achieved a courageous turnaround is a significant step towards increasing confidence.
“I think that, for several reasons, this was a huge victory,” said Thybulle. “To be under and back, to win on the road, to win without Joel. I think many of these reasons come together to make this a big win. We all felt very good about winning, because we had a feeling of how bad it would be if we lost. We can take it and move on. “