Good win out in California against a top-six Western Conference team.

I lasted until the third quarter last night before passing out, then woke up and watched the fourth quarter replay this morning.

One thing really jumped out at me from the win, which was Joel Embiid’s usage at the end of the game. There’s a camp of Sixers fans who think Joel should be getting low post touches to close out tight games (see: Celtics on Christmas Day), and Brett Brown went to his big man multiple times last night while the Sixers were up by two scores, clinging to a lead and trying to stave off a Clippers team that ended up outscoring Philly 25 to 18 in the fourth quarter. The Sixers’ ability to get baskets took a huge hit after Jimmy Butler was ejected alongside Avery Bradley with about seven minutes remaining.

The Embiid results were a mixed bag, but we got a treasure trove of film to watch regarding Joel’s ability to deal with double teams and make correct decisions in the “guts of the game,” as Marc Zumoff would say.

Exhibit A, with the Sixers up 5 at the 2:51 mark, after the jump:

Joel gets in deep, gets the ball early, and gets the layup over Montrezl Harrell.

I like this post entry, which pulls the power forward out to the perimeter and spreads out the Sixers wings in the corners. The idea here is that when Wilson Chandler is making the pass from high middle portion of the floor, it’s just harder for his defender to double team Joel. If LA wants to double, they’re pulling one of their guards from the corner and leaving JJ Redick wide open (bad) or T.J. McConnelll wide open (you can live with that).

Using your power forward to play the entry pass to the center is a good way to avoid a two-big double, or in the Clippers case, a 6’9″ hybrid in Tobias Harris. Nice job by the Sixers here.

Exhibit B, with the Sixers up 4 at the 2:21 mark:

Embiid vs. Harrell again, but here comes Lou Williams on the dig and double. Joel dribbles out of it and gets Harrell 1v1, then pulls up for the mid-range jumper instead.

That’s okay considering the circumstances, but he just doesn’t get any help from his teammates here, who sort of stand around and watch him try to navigate the 2v1 on his own.

Case in point:

Redick isn’t helping him at all by standing there. If he moves where I’ve got the arrow pointing, yes, he’s pulling his defender closer to Embiid, but he’s also got plenty of room for a catch and shoot three there. T.J. McConnell isn’t a three-point shooter, so Danilo Gallinari can kind of sag, which blocks the cross-court pass to Wilson Chandler. Ben Simmons isn’t a shooter, so he takes Harris down to the opposite block instead.

The lineup deficiencies are one thing, sure, and if Butler was in the game it would be a lot different, but the Sixers can do a lot more off the ball to help Joel out of these dig and double situations.

Exhibit C, with the Sixers up 6 at the 1:37 mark:

Same thing here.

It’s a typical Redick to Embiid elbow/25 post entry, and here comes Harris to double and leave Simmons wide open. McConnell and Chandler are clumped together, Redick is guarded on the perimeter, and Embiid spins away for a low-percentage turnaround Michael Jordan fadeaway instead.

Simmons looks to be open for a brief second there on the cut, and that causes Gallinari to slide down, but there’s no way Embiid can get the ball to Chandler or McConnell from that position.

Ugly sequence there.

Exhibit D, with the Sixers up 5 at the 1:20 mark:

Again they’re just trying to get Embiid in the low post off the two-man game with Redick.

They’ve had success springing him off his shooting guard back screen, where sometimes JJ is able to just walk his man right into the defending big, but Sindarius Thornwell does a nice job of fronting JJ and sort of junking up the play, which results in Joel being pushed out wide, something like 20 feet from the basket before he can square up against Harrell. He dribbles too much and turns the ball over.

Simmons, Chandler, and McConnell are again unable to do much of anything here, so I think it’s on JJ to see the trouble occurring, come back into the picture, and give Embiid a release with that catch and shoot threat from the wing or the corner.

That’s all I’ve got for that topic. It’s sort of the good, the bad, and the ugly, right? Clip one featured a nice post entry and quick hit. Then you have spacing and turnover issues in the other clips. I think navigating the double team is Joel’s biggest weakness right now, but he needs help from his teammates and coaches in “feeling out” those situations moving forward, or else his usage at the end of games is going to be harder to justify.

Other notes:

  • A lot of scuttlebutt on Twitter about the Embiid/Simmons rebound, the play where Ben accidentally elbowed him going for the ball. This should be a non-issue, as Simmons is the point guard and primary ball handler. Any relatively-free rebound should be his he looks to move the team up the court. And in cases like this one, it looked like Ben tried to pull out once he saw Joel had his hands on the ball. Looked like two guys going for a rebound to me:

  • The play at the end of the game, where Simmons threw the ball off of the Thornwell – Ben actually was still out of bounds when he caught the ball:

https://twitter.com/jbrooks_89/status/1080348751036768256?s=21

The Sixers got away with one there.

  • They got good minutes from Jonah Bolden, who had 9 points on 4-4 shooting, 6 rebounds, and a block in 15 minutes of play. Let’s see him get 20+ minutes tonight against a bad Phoenix squad on the second night of a road back-to-back.
  • Ben Simmons was 2-6 from the line last night and missed a pair late in the fourth quarter. He’s shooting 58% from the line this season.
  • The Sixers shot 46.2% from three last night, which was their 7th-best outing on the season. They shot 48.1% against the Clippers the first time around, which was their 4th-best deep shooting performance.
  • That shooting made up for 21 turnovers, which was the 4th-worst performance in that department this year.
  • 17 offensive rebounds was tied for a season high, and it’s the reason why raw turnover numbers are more or less bullshit, because when you shoot the three-ball at a high clip and gain extra possessions on the offensive glass, you negate bad passes and loose handles.

Happy New Year.