Booed off the floor at one point in the first half on Sunday, the Sixers turned their defense up about five notches in the third quarter to surge past Indiana for a relatively comfortable 17-point win.

It was a critical comeback, one that gave the Sixers the playoff tiebreaker over the Victor Oladipo-less Pacers by virtue of a 3-1 season series victory. That should pretty much do it for Indy as a possible three seed, since five of their remaining 15 games include Boston, Oklahoma City, Golden State, Denver, and Portland, all on the road. It’s quite possible they fall back to 5th place in the east come April.

By far, the most impressive thing about Sunday’s win was the third quarter defensive effort, a very active and intense period in which the Sixers allowed a measly 11 points. Brett Brown’s team erased an eight-point halftime deficit and then pulled ahead in the fourth behind the magic of Joel Embiid, who made his long-awaited and very much needed return to action.

Knocking off the rust

Joel looked rusty in the first half, like a guy who hadn’t played in, well, a few weeks. He took and missed a pair of three pointers, had trouble getting his rhythm down, and was whistled for a couple of foul calls that would normally be atypical for him, including a chase down block where he failed to reach the ball and instead smushed Aaron Holiday into the stanchion.

After a  4-9 first half, Joel woke up in a big way, shooting 7-12 the rest of the way en route to pouring in 33 points on 52% shooting. He didn’t attempt another three pointer and spent most of his time in and around the paint, which is a welcome sight, especially on a return from injury:

Brett Brown pointed out that he was especially happy with Joel committing just two turnovers on Sunday, an area that concerned him heading into this matchup. The head ball coach also brought Embiid back in the game when he had three fouls in the second quarter and four fouls in the third quarter.

Brow on that:

It was mostly the confidence. I’m more worried about him getting (whistled for) a charge than fouling. As he’s gotten older, and as he and I have spent more time with each other, I trust him. I do trust him. At times it has backfired and even his 4th foul, we have Amir (Johnson) waiting at the scorer’s table, I think Joel felt like somebody pushed him and (that’s how he) got his fourth foul. He was gonna end up not having four fouls if it wasn’t for that situation. So I think it was a level of trust. It certainly was that I wanted him in the game because of what I know he can do. There’s a little bit of a rhythm thing, but by far I think trust is the dominant word that had me keep him in there.

Embiid was phenomenal at both ends in the second half, but I felt his presence more on the defensive end, where Indy shot 4-15 while matched up against him. When you look at the box score you see that Indy’s bigs weren’t able to do very much on the day, not at all. The Pacers missed some foul shots, which hurt them, but Thad Young, Domantas Sabonis, and Myles Turner combined to go 6-24 from the floor as the Pacers scored just 40 points in the paint.

I asked Brett how much Joel’s presence at the rim had to do with that:

I think a lot of it. I’ll go back and look at it, but my first reaction is that (Joel’s presence) is a lot of it. And I think some of the rear view contests that we have, as those guys are going up for interior shots, some of the length we have behind (the shot) with Ben and Jimmy and Tobias, like we can swat shots with what we call those rear view contests. But Joel no doubt had an impact on those numbers. We probably caught a break with the volume of free throws they missed, but I thought our interior defense was pretty good.

The Pacers hit 1 of 6 contested field goals going up against Embiid, who was credited with four Indy turnovers as a result of his interior defense.

On the offensive end, Joel’s biggest contribution was an absurd three-point pump fake followed by a Eurostep into a contested bucket, and-1.

Check this out:

Embiid walked over to the corner of the floor closest to the media section, pumped up the crowd, and said “I’m back” after that play, which extended the lead to nine and essentially put this one to bed.

Joel said he felt much more comfortable in the third and fourth quarter as the game went on:

Oh yeah, definitely. I was talking about being rusty and as the game kept going, I just kept getting better, getting to the line a lot too. The game started slowing down for me, but my focus was really defensively, just by the way we’ve been playing and the way we were playing, so I felt like I had to – I don’t think I had a blocked shot today, but just being all over the place helping my teammates. I’m glad we got the win.
Embiid was 11-15 from the free throw line and earned half of the Sixers’ 30 attempts on the day.

He also explained that it had  been difficult to watch from the sidelines with the left knee soreness that had kept him out since the All-Star Game:

It’s been hard because you want to be out there. For the people that know me, you know I hate not playing. I always want to play and I always push to play, but at the end of the day, you got to trust all these guys. We’ve all done a great job as far as getting me back on the court, taking the right approach. I’m sure at some point, in these last 15 games I’m going to miss a game just to make sure that I’m good to go for the playoffs. But they’ve been doing a great job, from the coaching staff to the medical staff to the front office. It worked out pretty well and I feel better.

Joel also pointed out that he felt like this game was important for the playoff seeding implications I mentioned earlier. He did not set a specific return date, but admitted that he would have been fine with playing in this game, then going on to “miss a couple.”

“I just felt like I had to play this game just to make sure that we were in good position,” Embiid said.

Joel played 27:58 and his knee looked pretty good to me, especially on this play:

https://twitter.com/TheRenderNBA/status/1104864179469668352

Welcome back.

The worst call you’ll ever see

If there was a point where I thought this thing might go south, it was late in the first quarter, with the Sixers not yet clicking and Joel still trying to find his footing.

On a Sabonis pick and roll, Embiid was whistled for a tripping foul, which he demonstrably contested, resulting in a technical foul. Two refs actually whistled him for a tech on the same play, which was reduced to just one technical since they were flagging him for the same exact thing.

When you watch it again, you see there’s no lower body contact at all:

https://twitter.com/DFSBBallGuy/status/1104836415806795777

Sabonis was whistled for a foul on the next offensive possession, a make up call from the corner ref.

Carry on!

Other notes:

  • The RZA rang the bell before the game. The Sixers are now 1-0 this season in games where a Wu-Tang Clan member rings the bell.
  • With the slow start during another afternoon game, I went through the schedule to see how the Sixers do in these 1pm, 3pm, and 330pm games. They were actually 4-2 before this game, and the two losses were at home to Oklahoma City and Portland. They had a couple of easy afternoon wins against bad Knicks and Cavs teams.
  • It’s time to retire Indiana’s  “Hickory” jerseys.
  • James Ennis had a big three to blow the game open. I thought he looked pretty good off the bench along with Mike Scott, who played power forward alongside Embiid and finished as a +20 despite going 0-3 from deep.
  • Only eight field goal attempts from Jimmy Butler, who went 6-6 from the line.
  • JJ Redick only shot 3-8 on the day but hit 50% of three pointers (3-6)
  • Boban looked like he was moving around really well in pregame activities. I wouldn’t be surprised if he returns soon.

Happy Monday. If the playoffs began today, the Sixers would host the Pistons in the first round, then get the Raptors/Nets winner in round two: