Hell of an effort by the Sixers in what has to be their best win in many years.

Am I wrong? There’s certainly no better win this season, and even if the Warriors were playing without Klay Thompson, they still had Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, Draymond Green, and Boogie Cousins on their home floor. You can certainly add the asterisk if you want, but it’s a small asterisk, and Brett Brown’s team deserves a ton of credit for shaking off a slow start, ripping off a 42-point third quarter, and then closing it out in steady fashion.

I think that’s the biggest takeaway for me, the way the Sixers finished the game. They suffered through some mediocre offensive possessions in the early and middle portions of the fourth quarter, but the defense was superb throughout, just very high level awareness and intensity in holding Golden State to only 18 fourth quarter points. It also helped that nobody outside of Curry could hit the broad side of a barn from beyond 22 feet.

But I also thought Brett Brown did a nice job of helping his team to the finish line by putting them in their comfort zone with a string of play calls that began around the 4:30 mark and took the Sixers to the final buzzer.

That’s really the key, isn’t it? We’ve seen the Sixers get to these points before – close games against good teams – where they have trouble “feeling” their way to the end. Ben Simmons doesn’t know whether to speed it up or slow it down and sometimes Brett, with good intentions, will be a little too hands-off for a young team that doesn’t have a ton of experience closing out the likes of the Warriors and Celtics.

To that end, he started dialing up some horns and pick and roll sets in the final third of the quarter, and I went back this morning and watched the last five minutes again to log their possessions after the second TV timeout, with the Sixers up 102-96:

  • Offense: 12 pick and roll (Ben Simmons and JJ Redick) – foul on Draymond Green, then a technical for arguing
  • Defense: Durant missed three
  • Offense: horns – Simmons drive to lane for bucket
  • Defense: foul on Mike Muscala (foul to give, no free throws), then steal by Jimmy Butler on the ensuing play
  • Offense: horns – same set, but the drive wasn’t there, and they settled for a bad Butler three-pointer
  • Defense: Durant dunk in transition
  • Offense: 12 pick and roll – Redick missed three
  • Defense: Curry made corner three
  • Offense: horns into Embiid isolation, Cousins foul
  • Defense: Durant missed three, Curry’s three blocked by Simmons
  • Offense: Embiid isolation, turnover
  • Defense: Curry blocked by Muscala
  • Offense: 35 pick and roll (Butler and Embiid) – Embiid offensive rebound and fouled
  • Defense: Curry three, ATO inbound play
  • Offense: Butler isolation, turnover
  • Defense: Curry air ball from three
  • Offense: 32 pick and roll (Butler and Redick) – Redick dagger three

Game over.

Golden State had another possession but the Redick three pretty much sealed the deal.

So when you look through that list and parse it, here’s what you get:

Offense: 9 possessions = 4 pick and rolls, 3 horns, 2 isolation, 2 turnovers, 3 fouls drawn, 2 makes, 1 miss

Brett dialed up a variety of looks there, and ironically the two turnovers came from their two isolation possessions, one for Butler and one for Embiid. The first horns set worked nicely while the second devolved into a late-shot clock heave, but they earned three fouls on those nine possessions, which is exactly what you’re looking for in these kinds of scenarios. Get hacked, get yourself to the line.

Overall some good, some bad, but I think Brown did a nice job of helping Simmons and company close the game out by going to familiar sets. I was somewhat surprised they didn’t go to the Embiid and Redick elbow set, which has been a past staple.

Defense: 8 possessions = 1 steal, 2 blocks, 1 foul, 3 makes and 3 misses for the Warriors

The steal and pair of blocks were tremendous. That’s a takeaway on 37.5% of Golden State’s final possessions, and when you combine that with the fact that they didn’t even put the Warriors on the line during that entire stretch, it’s indicative of smart and sound defense. They really played a disciplined final stretch on that end of the floor.

Ben Simmons

Tremendous game for the first-time All-Star.

Specifically, I thought his consistency was key. He played well throughout and really pulled the starting unit along when Butler and Embiid were struggling early. You could probably make an argument that this was his best game in a Sixers uniform, a line of 26 points, 8 rebounds, and 6 assists to match 10-13 shooting and four turnovers. No, he didn’t stuff the stat sheet with a meaningless triple-double, but I thought he was incredibly efficient and assertive on the night, just smart with his decision making on the offensive end.

The highlight, however, if I had to pick one, is the clutch block he put on Curry in the final moments:

Fantastic commitment there, first to put Curry off his initial spot, then hold his feet, recover, and get a piece of the second shot. Not many guys have the athleticism to make that second play.

Think about it –

If Steph hits that shot it’s two straight three pointers for the Warriors and a Sixers lead cut to 4 points with 1:55 on the clock. Instead, that block, plus the Muscala block, allowed Philly to come back down the floor, get on the foul line, and put a few more points on the board.

Joel Embiid

He struggled early. Bad turnovers, overthinking his matchup with Cousins, and just taking too many three pointers.

Joel settled in with an excellent third quarter, going down to the blocks and bossing Kevon Looney, getting rebounds, and putting himself on the free throw line.

I was sitting there thinking that the windmill dunk at the end of the first half was one of those “get the frustration out” moments, and it certainly was, because he really loosened up in the third quarter and started doing things like this:

That’s a man’s bucket. That’s bully ball.

It doesn’t look like much as a highlight clip, but that’s just body vs. body, and Joel is able to simply move a 6’9″, 220 pound guy out of the way to follow up his own miss with a put back.

You also saw him be a little more patient with Cousins in the third quarter. He hit a nice hook shot over him where he backed him down with more intent, then turned around to float a right hand over the starting center.

No surprise, Embiid scored 12 of his points on 20 possessions against Looney. He only scored 9 points on 2-11 shooting in 39 possessions against Cousins. It was a difficult matchup for Joel, but he hung in there, finally abandoned the three point line, and got a lot of stuff to work down low:

Says it all right there.

Jimmy Butler

Some good defensive plays and that big three-point play last night, but otherwise I thought he was disappointing. Maybe the wrist was bothering him.

He just looked like he had no interest in doing anything with the ball in his hands. His possessions had no purpose and it seemed like he was incredibly hesitant to shoot. The isolation turnover at the end of the fourth quarter was poor and even when he did get a couple of spots to run his preferred pick and roll sets, he didn’t do anything with them. That’s your spot Jimmy. You wanted it, right? Do something with it.

Last night he was basically a more expensive Robert Covington. Would Covington have survived a 3-12 shooting night against the Warriors? No, he would have been booed into oblivion.

Not sure what the deal was with Butler last night, he just didn’t seem to have it on the offensive end.

The bench

Wonderful collective performance.

There was a point in this game, sometime in the third quarter, where the combination of Landry Shamet, Mike Muscala, T.J. McConnell, and Jonah Bolden hadn’t missed a single shot.

Seriously. They were something like 12-12, that group, while Corey Brewer was 1-4.

The bench came to play last night, and they were responsible for a key 1st quarter run that pulled the Sixers level after they fell behind by double digits. Muscala came in for the injured Wilson Chandler down the stretch and had the huge block on Curry. Bolden put up 8 and 5 in 14 minutes with 2 steals and 2 blocks. T.J. hit a couple of shots and held his own out there, while Landry Shamet had the sequence of the game, one where I turned to my wife and said, “listen, this guy is a rookie” –

He’s really been a great story this season, Shamet.

Other notes:

  • Brewer didn’t have a great shooting night but gave some defensive energy in 9 minutes off the pine
  • Furkan Korkmaz was again a DNP
  • I thought Draymond actually had an argument for a foul call before his technical. The collision with Simmons looked like it would have been called a charge by other officiating crews. Instead, no whistle, then Ben got the return pass under the basket and was fouled.
  • The Warriors shot 28.9% from three. Players not named Steph Curry were 1-20 on the night.
  • The Sixers had 7 turnovers in the first five minutes, then finished with 19 on the night. They actually did a pretty good job of handling the ball from the second quarter to the midway point of the fourth. Golden State coughed it up 15 times on their home floor, for comparison.
  • Chandler, before his exit, had two bad turnovers but knocked down 2-5 three pointers. That’s 40%. Shrug. He hit his only 2 point shot to finish 3-6.
  • Draymond is a great player and does a lot of things well, but he should never take another three for the rest of his NBA career.