Fun day down in Delaware, and nice to see some 5v5, full court, 76ers basketball again.

The Field House played host to this year’s iteration of the Blue X White scrimmage, the casual intra-squad exhibition that has kicked off the Sixers’ season in each of the past two years. This time, the squad was split into one group featuring starters and rotational players, and another with some bench pieces and veteran backup guys:

  • blue team: Joel Embiid, Tobias Harris, Al Horford, Josh Richardson, Ben Simmons, Raul Neto, Furkan Korkmaz,Haywood Highsmith, Norvel Pelle, Isaiah Miles
  • white team: Mike Scott, Kyle O’Quinn, James Ennis, Trey Burke, Matisse Thybulle, Zhaire Smith, Jonah Bolden, Christ Koumadje, Marial Shayok, Shake Milton

Brett Brown did not actually “coach” either team, with Ime Udoka and Joseph Blair handling the blue squad and Kevin Young and John Bryant organizing the whites. That squad started Burke, Thybulle, Ennis, Scott, and O’Quinn, which made for a nice defensive test for the Sixers starters.

Ben’s jump shot

Let’s just get this one out of the way first.

He was 0-1 on jumpers, that one attempt coming as a fadeaway 10 footer that missed the rim. Most of Ben’s actions on the afternoon were aggressive downhill plays, and he showed some glimpses, in a casual setting, of the All-Star player we saw last year.

I thought he might shoot a three in the second quarter, when a broken 2v1 turned into what looked like an opportunity to fire from the corner, but he pulled the ball down under pressure and then ended up turning it over.

The second opportunity came on a defensive miscue, which left him WIDE OPEN in the corner and WIDE OPEN in his path to the rim. So he did the right thing, drove the ball, and dunked it:

Interesting sequence though, because I thought he might try that shot, considering the fact that this was just a throw-away scrimmage.

Before the game, he did take a bunch of three pointers, some of which I captured here:

Joel Embiid

He didn’t play too hard or too much, which is exactly what you wanted to see. I honestly thought he looked a little tired and/or uninterested, but whatever. No problem. He didn’t appear in the second half and only played a couple of first half shifts, so he was probably out there for a total of 10-14 minutes.

Rotational stuff

Not surprisingly, Embiid was the first starter to come off, making way for Furkan Korkmaz. That moved Al Horford down to the five and Tobias Harris to the four.

When Ben Simmons came out, Raul Neto handled the ball, then there was a brief period where they shared the floor together with Neto in an off-ball role while Josh Richardson was also on the floor.

That’s something to keep an eye on Tuesday when the Sixers play against Guangzhou in the preseason opener.

Size

The starters really are massive. It’s something to behold in person.

There was an early sequence where Al Horford got switched onto Trey Burke and successfully pushed him into the corner for a contested shot. In general, the white team just had a lot of trouble getting off clean shots in the paint because of the starting front court’s size and length. It’s going to be very hard for opposing teams to get quality shots at and around the rim this season.

Matisse Thybulle

By far, the standout player of the game. At one point in the second half I think he was up to a combined 8 or 9 deflections and steals. He strung together three of them on three straight possessions at one point, resulting in a loud roar of applause from the crowd.

“I hate him on defense,” joked Ben Simmons after the game. “So far he’s been amazing. His length, just the way he plays the game. He can run the floor, makes the right read and he just plays. He’s just long. He had 6 deflections or something like that in the first quarter, something crazy. Defensively, he’s right there.”

Simmons, Al Horford, and Brett Brown all had good things to say about Thybulle post game, which he appreciated.

“It’s a good feeling; that’s what you set out to do when you get here,” Thybulle said. “That was my goal through open gym, to camp and into the scrimmage, was just to establish to the rest of the guys that I fit in. To hear that they’re saying that is a pretty good feeling.”

The deflections are something you’ll probably see a lot of this season, a Robert Covington-esque ability to disrupt offensive flow and start some offense going in the other direction.

It’s something the Sixers have always valued.

“At practice we chart and reward in the way we score games, deflections,” Brett Brown explained “He (Thybulle) shines in that area in practice. There was clear carryover to this game. Oftentimes deflections can produce steals too, and when you chart it, the number of times he got his hands on balls or came up with steals was elite.”

This was probably his best play of the day, a sprint back and swat on Josh Richardson on what looked like a clean transitional look:

Other notes

  • Tobias Harris had a nice dunk after attacking what looked to be a Jonah Bolden close out. He’s really good at getting that first step on rotating defenders and quickly moving downhill. He also looks a little more muscular this year, a little more beefy.
  • Al Horford had a couple of nice blocks right at the rim. Didn’t see too much from him offensively. He took a missed a couple of trailing threes.
  • Trey Burke handled the ball a majority of the time for the white team but really had trouble getting shots off against the Embiid/Horford combination.
  • Richardson had consecutive first half buckets, one a nice drive to the rack and then a mid-range jumper off a DHO.
  • I thought Neto and Burke played pretty tough defense against each other. This is the second time in their careers they’ve been competing for a backup PG spot.
  • Kyle O’Quinn looked like a veteran out there, directing traffic and yelling at guys (in a good way)
  • Christ Koumadje dunked a ball from underneath the backboard. His arms are so long and he’s so tall that he’s simply able to reach back and still put his hands above the rim.

The environs

The Field House is a fantastic complex, and bigger than I thought it would be. When you walk in, it basically has a corridor running down the middle that splits the basketball court from a full length indoor turf soccer field. There’s a connected balcony on the second floor that gives you a stellar view of both the court and the field, plus a huge weightroom and baseball pitching area: