Joel Embiid put the Sixers in his backpack and took them to victory on Friday night, scoring his first game of 50 points in the 112-105 victory over the Chicago Bulls.
Here’s what I saw.
The good
• Congratulations to the Bulls big shot, Wendell Carter Jr., for not showing fear in his fight with Joel Embiid. WCJ matched Embiid shot-by-shot at the beginning, leading the Chicago attack alone with very good midsize work.
Unfortunately for the young big Bull, this ensured that Embiid was hired from the start. Embiid seemed to take these marks personally, and he punished Carter Jr. across the court absolutely, forcing him to have initial problems with deep crossbar footings and an emphasis on initiating contact. Embiid would score 14 points in a shorter turn than he normally has to open the game.
Successes kept coming. Embiid resumed where he left off in the second quarter, pushing the Sixers back into the lead in style, punctuating with this ridiculous step from the Euro and the lack:
There are so few guys in league history that have been able to do everything that this guy can do at both ends. Embiid is regularly able to perform this type of movement at full speed, and although you sometimes worry about a guy with a health history getting into traffic without a plan, it’s remarkable how elegant and graceful he is for a man of his size.
Then he arrives with power, and suddenly you remember that he It is after all, a great man. This was one of the most dominant nights that Embiid had in the glass for some time, with the big guy creating a lot of extra possessions with very disputed rebounds, where he decided he would not let anyone fall with the ball. It’s a great sign on several levels, especially with regard to his physical health, after some ugly grimaces and back pain earlier in the week.
When the third quarter arrived, Embiid’s help had almost run out to start half, so the big guy continued his attack. When he left the game, with less than two minutes left for the third, he had 37 points with 70 percent field shots in just 27 minutes of action. The Bulls were unable to respond, although they had every reason to focus their attention on Embiid. He was so good.
Whenever Embiid is in this form, the Sixers have a chance to win. Even on a night when there was little help from the support cast, it happened on Friday, although it was closer than it should have been. When all was said and done, Embiid made his first 50 point game of his career and the Sixers got a ‘W’. Work well done.
• You will be lost in time by the time this story is archived, but possession in the final minute of the first half, where Embiid and Tobias Harris simply refused to back down on the offensive glass it’s probably my favorite possession of the season. I would have to see the replay again, but they managed 4 or 5 rebounds in a single ball possession, and when they finally emerged from the sea of Bulls players, Embiid scored a foul and received a pair at the stripe charity.
The greatest compliment I can offer is that it was a moment that Moses Malone would have been proud of. Not bad for a game in mid-February against an average Eastern Conference team.
• Speaking of Harris, he is one of the few guys who need not bow their heads in shame for his offensive contributions on Friday night.
The theme of the entire season of playing physically continued against the Bulls, with Harris attacking just about anyone the Bulls had the audacity to launch against him in the middle of the post. A year after we expected the Sixers to play bully ball, Harris finally found a way to make it happen. Newcomer Patrick Williams – a big, athletic guy in his own right – had the misfortune to defend Harris at a few different points during the game.
While ESPN’s Richard Jefferson screamed on the broadcast, Harris discovered that his cover did not read the patrol report and took advantage of the fact that Williams leaned too far in the middle as he passed to the left.
At the very least, Harris’ work in the middle of the post was able to buy some belongings for Embiid where he could rest while he was still on the ground, and with the workload the big guy had on Friday night, that was a big blessing.
• Matisse Thybulle’s impact from a cash-scoring perspective was minimal, but he had a huge chore on his hands on Friday night and did an excellent job of assigning Chicago’s maximum perimeter. Zach LaVine had some flashes of brightness as he used to have throughout the year, but Thybulle was excellent especially while protecting him, even in possessions when he did not close the game alone.
Lately, we’ve seen more of Thybulle’s “total package” defense games, performances in which he was able to combine the chaos of creating turnovers with discipline to force players where he wants to go. Embiid was able to find LaVine on the edge or dissuade him from trying on several occasions because of Thybulle’s positioning, guiding the Bulls’ guard to a place where the big guy could attack late.
• I say this to try to hit the rest of the group, but to praise the issue: Philadelphia’s best bank attack on Friday night was to shoot and then pray that Dwight Howard could make an offensive rebound. It was the only area of the game where he had a consistent impact this season, and they needed every opportunity he got, because they couldn’t count on anyone to produce against the Bulls.
If that’s the cost of their typical problem, I suppose they’ll just have to live with it.
The evil
• There has been a lot of discussion about the bench lately, almost all of it bad, and I can understand the concern as someone who has to watch every minute of those games. They offered almost nothing on either end of the court, and it is easy to look at this group as it is built and think that they will not be good enough to compete in the playoffs.
They were basically the only reason why Chicago stayed in this game on Friday night. Rivers tried to give Embiid a little more rest in the first half, and without Tobias Harris to support them, it was a real nightmare for Philly. Tyrese Maxey beat runner after runner, Mike Scott was basically running back and forth across the court, and Furkan Korkmaz … well, let’s get to him down there.
(Staying with Maxey for a second, this type of game is part of the reason why you see newbies struggling to get playing time under many coaches, Rivers included. It’s one thing to miss shots, especially when you’re being asked to load a second lifeless unit, but he made it worse by making terrible mental mistakes and trying to make up for them at once, instead of letting the game come to him. I have a feeling he might be standing on the bench for a while after Shake going back.)
Here is a ray of sunshine in a dark period for the second unit – I don’t think they need to panic and I don’t think this is the drastic problem it seems at the moment. Shake Milton will come back and give them a ride, yes, but many of these guys will also be minimized or totally out of rotation when games start to matter.
I would bet a good amount of money that there will be an addition / exchange or two before the negotiation deadline, and drawing any conclusions about this group on a night without Ben Simmons is a little pointless. When your most versatile player (and high level player) is parked on the sideline, you are sure to see overloaded guys.
• The smelly bank is one thing, but this was an ugly game for Seth Curry and Danny Green, who were bad in their own (but relatively familiar) ways.
Curry’s night is one that you can excuse to some extent because he was just out of pace. I still believe he is very hesitant to shoot at times, with Curry dodging several open looks in great passes by Embiid, but he has been doing much better for most of the year, so I ignore the fight to some extent.
Green was bad in the loudest possible way in defense, hit repeatedly for layups and late in close after close, he was lucky not to get burned. He has been an unpredictable player basically throughout his career, but it is a little worrying that we have seen so few actively useful games from the veteran this year. If he stays on time, they will need a lot more of him if he wants to stay in the starting and ending groups.
(I’ll say that – Green hit some three big moments when they needed them overnight. I’m a little shocked at how bad he has been on defense for most of the season.)
• Doc Rivers only needs to step up Embiid and Harris in a game like this so that one of them is on the floor at all times. The bank hasn’t had this in weeks, and leaving the group of all the banks out there to die is a problem that can be avoided.
The ugly
• Furkan Korkmaz did not have one, but two of the season’s worst turnovers in a short period spanning the end of the first quarter and the beginning of the second quarter. I have no idea what he thought he saw, but he launched two separate passes for absolutely no one and then looked up, incredulous, while the other players remained standing where they were the whole time.
I arrived in the year with very high expectations for Korkmaz, who had a good year last year and looked like a guy who could benefit from Rivers’ touch with snipers. It was in the other direction, with Korkmaz the obvious guy to abandon the rotation to mix things up.
Mike Scott deserves a little analysis for a very different version of inefficiency. Korkmaz’s mistakes are higher, no doubt, but Scott basically does none of the right little things. When the paralyzed sniper is taking the occasional open shot that comes at him, we apologize for the rest, but defensive errors abound and there are times when you think to yourself, “I didn’t expect this from him!” in a positive way.
There are many paralyzed snipers in the world.
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