The Sixers almost lost a 20-point lead in the second half, but Bradley Beal’s 60 points were not enough to stop Philly from winning a 141-136 victory over the Wizards.
Here’s what I saw.
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The good
• The Philadelphia attack has been a delight to watch so far this season. Of course, there are properties where their inexperience shows through and they look like a team that hasn’t managed a real training camp. But a normal descent is fun to watch for Philly this season, something I couldn’t have imagined when we were watching a team that started four different players who wanted the ball on the post.
Although part (ok, a lot) of his success on Wednesday night was the result of Washington being a toxic waste dump in defense, these guys are just playing a big brand of basketball. The ball is rarely stuck, there are a lot less wasted dribbles and lost possessions, and even when certain guys hit it, they are still looking to make moves for the good of the group.
Take, for example, Seth Curry, who started the game totally on fire and never gave in the first half, losing 20 points in the first two quarters. Even in the middle of his heater, there were opportunities for him to call his own number and say he had failed in order to hunt down a better shot for Tobias Harris or Danny Green.
(I’m divided on Ben Simmons’ decision to reward Embiid for running the court in the first half. Curry was wide open on the side and was feeling it, so anyone who believes he should have taken the ball, I will not argue, but you need to keep encouraging the big guys when they run.)
They are living the mantra of their head coach, who doesn’t care how they score and who scores, as long as they are putting points on the board.
• Curry really deserves to be highlighted for his game on Wednesday and for the insane numbers he is presenting for the beginning of the year. He is sure to return to Earth at some point – no one is shooting more than 50 percent of three at this type of volume for an entire season – but the man is forcing opposing defenses to make really tough decisions.
On Wednesday night, he approached Philadelphia’s unlikely clash in the fourth period, shaking a quiet third period to lead the Sixers at decisive moments, taking advantage of the failure in defending the visitors. If anything, the Sixers should have made sure to give him more ball, with Curry staying open for some swing passes that never really came his way.
The only criticism I make of him is the same criticism I received throughout the opening stretch: it’s okay if he plays a little more selfishly. Being a top guy is a good thing, but no one would be upset if one of the league’s best snipers threw some questionable shots in the middle of a heater.
• Joel Embiid went on to what appeared to be a complicated display early on Wednesday night, missing the first six shots and spoiling several goods in an almost comical way. After returning from the bench, he had the opportunity to make a technical free throw, and that was all it took to change the night for the better.
Five consecutive marks later, Embiid was in the zone, combining the pass he had made in the first quarter with the killer gunner’s instinct he has in the single penthouse. This buried in Thomas Bryant was simply disrespectful:
Embiid would arrive with 15 points at the end of the first half, and it was a much more typical night for him on both ends, as he found balance in the attack.
It was his insertion into the game in a time of crisis that really took Philly to the top in the end. The Sixers were holding on to a string after the Wizards finally punished them for not killing the game, and Embiid came to provide some stability at both ends of the floor.
The big guy’s best level of fitness came when it mattered most, with Embiid dominating the painting and still gathering energy for a huge transition block in the final minutes of the game. He wasn’t the only guy producing on Wednesday by any stretch of the imagination, but there were echoes of games in the past tonight, with Embiid feeling like the only thing between the Sixers and a total meltdown.
There weren’t many rebounds on a night with so much hot shooting, so your line doesn’t look like a typical Embiid night, but it was more of a dominant effort. The unrest continues.
• Shake Milton was arguably the pre-season player (admittedly short) and played a show on his opening night, but he had a hard time kicking the ball in the weeks that followed. Entering the game with a 27.3 percent depth mark, Milton recovered at Philly’s end, a welcome sight with his best player fighting at the start.
The third-year guard went on the old way – on the free-throw line and with the intermediate game, spinning and turning inside the arc with the help of Dwight Howard to make way. Milton was the only guy who didn’t completely fall off the bench on Wednesday, which is the coolest thing you can say about someone in the second unit.
The evil
• It was interesting that Rivers never seemed interested in having Ben Simmons as owner of Bradley Beal.
Five years ago, I could see the urge to put him on a guy like Russel Westbrook, when he was an athletic monster who could compromise his defense. Nowadays, the ex-MVP is more of a paper tiger, a guy who still does damage, but is more likely to shoot his team Out of a game.
I could even understand the initial decision to have Danny Green against him in an equal fight. But it quickly became clear that the Green-Thybulle combination offered very little resistance, and what better use for the All-Defense guy on your first team than to make him follow a guy who’s shooting at the lights?
Despite Beal’s 32 points in the first half, Rivers did not move and Beal continued cooking in the second half, reaching the 50th mark with a few minutes remaining for the third quarter. He did it in every possible way, hitting three pull-ups, scoring in the cuts, trying some free throws – it was a pretty offensive display for a guy whose team had fewer weapons most of the night.
Philly still comfortably overtook Wiz for a while, but the strategy seemed especially pointless because Washington really had nothing (or anyone) available, and the Sixers seemed to have a ready solution to the problem. Wouldn’t you rather take a chance saying, Rui Hachimura hitting you, a guy that Simmons kept sometimes on Wednesday?
The Sixers did nothing to stop the attack and, had it not been for the combination of hot shootings and Washington’s poor defense, they could have paid for it. Washington has returned to a game in which he had nothing to do, and the decision not to make Beal’s life any more difficult will be a major point of discussion after the game. At least he finally got cold in the room, and if you’re being charitable, maybe Rivers was just trying to tire you out in the first 36 minutes.
(By the way, staying put is kind of Doc Rivers MO, for better or worse. Get used to that kind of thing.)
• With all this being said about the assignment issue, Simmons did not do much to change the game in the second half as he started to get out of control. Rivers keeping him out of Beal’s mission is one thing, but his offensive limitations showed his ugly face after a first half when he was really very effective as a striker.
In the first 24 minutes (and in the final eight or so with Embiid), Simmons was able to control the time both in the half court and in the transition, responding to several buckets from Washington with quick scores in the opposite direction. He was active on and off the ball, creating for himself and others. Then the break hit, and the openings that were there closed a little, and Simmons’ lack of creativity in the half-court with the ball in his hands slowed Philly’s attack on a crawl.
I give him credit for that – he helped Philly to pull himself together at the time of the squeeze with a great combination of play with Embiid, rediscovering his form when they needed it most. But, again, I thought he was a passenger for much of the game.
• The defense of Philadelphia as a team was not so good, even apart from Beal’s performance, and it was the first night that I think you could say that the effort really affected them. Late rotations, hesitation to fight through a screen and, worst of all, some moves in which the wizards overcame them in the transition and achieved easy scores for their problems.
In front of a back-to-back and against a team, they clearly seem to know how to execute against in times of crisis, I will not go very far. But I’m a little interested in how they’ll fare against the high-level guards when they get to the most difficult part of their schedule, and that wasn’t exactly a good data point in that regard.
• The biggest culprits in the loss of leadership were almost everyone in the bank. Outside of Milton, almost all the other guys in the second unit were lost at sea against the Wizards. Dwight Howard was ineffective in defense, Tyrese Maxey never had the ball enough to do much with it and Matisse Thybulle was the unfortunate victim of Beal’s show, trying his best and getting close anyway.
And that was with Rivers staggered his lineup a little more because of injuries to the rotation. Tobias Harris and Simmons were the guys who spent time with heavy looks, and neither was enough to support them. Ugly night for the supporting cast.
The ugly
• Fair warning: I wrote the paragraphs below before the Sixs stifled most of a big advantage for the Wizards, so yes, there are certainly more downsides than that after that abysmal defensive effort.
When the only real complaint you can make about a team during the first eight games is that you want to see it prove its worth against a “real” competition, you know it started well.
Next week, they will be tested. Thursday’s game against Brooklyn is not as exciting with Kevin Durant out, but that game is followed by a meeting with Denver and Nikola Jokic, the upstart Atlanta Hawks, and a pair against Jimmy Butler’s Miami Heat. Things are about to get a little more interesting and I appreciate the chance to judge this team against high caliber opponents.
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