The Sixers brought Ben Simmons and Shake Milton back to the team on Sunday, but pitiful shootouts and a night of ups and downs for Joel Embiid cost them a 110-103 loss to the Raptors.
Here’s what I saw.
The good
• The Sixers could have been unbalanced by the Raptors to start Sunday’s game, with Toronto opting for a small lineup as a counterattack the size of Philly. So much for that plan – Ben Simmons has been in full swing since the jump, and the Raptors were forced to bring Aron Baynes into the game to play a more “traditional” lineup quite quickly.
Simmons was the biggest surprise, fresh from an absence of two games due to illness. He has shown no prolonged effects since the layoff, using stops he created in defense to speed up the pace early on, and forced the Raptors to attack him with aggressive moves to the edge. He made eight free-throw attempts until the break, which is a large number for many full games Simmons has already appeared, and he increased that number in the second half.
The change in mentality in the past few weeks was noticeable and, although he did not have the same burst of more than 40 points that we saw against Utah last week, this game was arguably more encouraging, because he was able and willing to hunt down his looks. despite having Embiid beside him and in the painting. He claims to have concentrated a lot of energy on the mental side of the game, and the increase in free throw suggests that the work is paying off.
We are beginning to see Simmons approach the ideal version of himself, keeping his defensive levels at the forefront while taking advantage of his physicality in attack better than at almost any time in his career (outside last January). The move was relatively straightforward in terms of execution – Simmons is just looking for his shot more in places he was already getting – but the impact was profound.
• Newcomer Isaiah Joe received approval on the Furkan Korkmaz spin, and I think you could justify giving him at least the games during the All-Star break to see what he has. The most encouraging sign is that he was a competent defender in the first year, despite some obvious physical limitations due to his body. Joe does a good job of sliding through traffic, reading where he needs to go, and he’s been much better at tracking his man and the ball while away from the game than most newbies can.
As a general observation about rotation, Rivers finally made the move to actively stagger his top two players. Had it not been for the bleeding points of the lineups led by Embiid on Sunday (a major change from the normal state of affairs), it would have been the first positive data for a change that many have implored. They should continue to play with this, because the group of all banks is tied now and it will only get worse when it is time for the playoffs.
I believe the saying is something like … trusting the process?
The evil
• For much of this evening, I found Joel Embiid better than his statistics suggested, in part because his teammates did a terrible job of taking advantage of the open looks he created for them. Toronto sent pressure waves and tough doubles at Embiid over the first half, and I thought he had one of his best passing halves, despite having only recorded one assist. He spread passes all over the floor – cross-section to the corner, touch passes out of the post – and his snipers did not earn money or refused to shoot in the first place.
Over time, however, the Toronto defense ended up wearing out the big guy, and he went back to some bad habits that he managed to avoid for much of this season. Instead of relying on his teammates to do the kicks (an easy task on a night when they were horrible), Embiid began to force the kicks and try to dribble a lot in traffic. It was a cold night of filming, to boot, and with those few and distant nights this year, it is not worth losing sleep.
Still, I don’t need to tell you how important dual management is and how we can still see the bright side during a bad night. It is essential that Embiid is able to punish pairs of different points on the ground, hitting home run passes himself, so that they do not depend on chaining the swing passes to open the eventual three. As we’ve seen a few times in Toronto, good defensive groups can clear shots faster, and if you’re not making passes that actively overwhelm defenders, they’ll end up forcing you to zero.
The Sixers will see many defenses like this in the future. Whether the choice is between living and dying with a single cover defense or forcing the ball out of your hands with doubles, this is an easy decision for opponents. It bodes well for the future that it already seems so good to deal with the pressure when you consider how adventurous it was in previous years.
Unfortunately, he had his worst shot performance of the year, which ended up with many of the good things he did. Sometimes this is how the game works, even if you have just come out of a 50-point night.
• Schematically, there were a number of disappointments and reading errors made in defending the ball for Philly. Embiid was visibly upset on several occasions on Sunday because the guys did not make the rotation he thought they should, and this often ended with a three open to Toronto. They have a lot of guys who can punish you when you’re not committed to closing, and this has allowed the Raptors to overcome the Sixers’ double-digit advantage in both halves.
Embiid was to blame for the defensive side of the ball. Despite playing 5 to 10 outstanding moves as a rim guard against Toronto, he was also the victim of a good job in Fred Van Vleet’s pick-and-roll, with Aron Baynes trying to layups after Embiid was caught too high. It is an area where he is still feeling things after spending his entire career so far in drop coverage.
(By the way, Dwight Howard should probably read the scout report before the next game. You can’t drop Chris Boucher.)
• It was Matisse Thybulle’s turn to ride the seesaw on Sunday night, with the sophomore winger getting smelly after a long streak of positive basketball. It is a little difficult to be upset when you consider how important he has been off the bench lately, but it was ugly for him nonetheless.
Was there a little “Chicken or the egg?” with your horrible more / less. On the one hand, Thybulle fell victim to Embiid’s worst possessions on the offensive end of the court, with Toronto hitting many open trios that came as a result of poor post-up attempts and reckless mid-range shots. On the other hand, part of the reason why Embiid took hard kicks and turned the ball is that the Raptors were empowered to send additional pressure on Embiid whenever Thybulle was on the ground.
The teams just don’t care if he gets open kicks now, and that has the potential to completely kill his viability in the playoffs. When it’s not sensational in defense, it doesn’t offer much.
• You cannot blame the Sixers for the three-point volume on Sunday, which is an improvement over many recent games, but, my God, this team has big fluctuations in quality from the bottom. Its streaks of heat and cold seem to be in sync most of the time, and the first half was an icy and miserable run beyond the arc.
Philadelphia’s 4/17 mark, three in the first half, seemed to exaggerate his ability to shoot. I would venture to assume that about 75 percent of his three were fully open and often came from the hands of Philadelphia’s best snipers – Seth Curry, Shake Milton and Tobias Harris went through stretches where they couldn’t afford one, although in Milton’s case he would end up recovering in the second half.
As we discussed throughout the year, taking they are half the battle. Harris and Curry were the two worst criminals (which seems crazy, given the gross total of attempts), dodging open eyes and freeing the Raptors on several occasions. When you work hard to create space in the first place, you can’t just give it back to your opponent for no good reason. I’d rather see Harris shoot them out of a game than bleed the shot clock.
• General scoring droughts were deadly for Philadelphia on Sunday, with problems or not. You will not win many games (if any!) In which you cannot score a single bucket for more than seven minutes.
The ugly
• Tobias Harris, losing at least five three fully open, definitely qualifies here. Difficult night for him.
• Danny Green commits at least one turnover per game in which I have to question whether he is playing the same game as everyone else. The passes are launched for someone who is open in another dimension, I think, because it certainly cannot be this.
• Doc Rivers wanted to get away from Furkan Korkmaz on the rotation on Sunday night, which I think is the right decision, and newcomer Isaiah Joe showed some good flashes while there. Unfortunately for Rivers, Matisse Thybulle found a way to get three fouls in about five minutes of the first half’s playing time, so Korkmaz was pushed back onto the court anyway.
It seems that Rivers could have played with almost anyone else on the team, including an additional center, and made better use of the minutes he got from Korkmaz. His shots were not close, his defensive readings were a complete disaster, and Joe is likely to have a more detailed view if current trends continue.
• I have no idea what the officers were doing on Sunday night. The guys were being hammered and didn’t draw a whistle, only to be called by a cockroach at the other end of the track, and then the dynamics changed, leaving everyone upset and confused about how to approach the game.
Technically, you should call things “by the book” as an official, but consistent application is the real key. As long as you make it clear that guys can or cannot play physically, or establish a firm line that they can’t cross, players will settle down at a pace. This game was a disjointed mess largely because of the way it was called.
• There are losses that are worth analyzing too much and from which to draw long-term conclusions. It looked like a strange game from the regular season.
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