Talk about ugly.
Toronto went on a 10-0 run over the final 3:48 to steal this one and end the Sixers’ four-game winning streak. Joel Embiid scored zero points on 0-11 shooting and finished 0-3 from the line while turning the ball over four times and committing five personal fouls.
Actually, let me type that out again:
Joel Embiid scored zero points on 0-11 shooting and finished 0-3 from the line while turning the ball over four times and committing five personal fouls.
Not sure there are words to describe Embiid’s Monday night performance, which was the worst of his career and took place just two days after the worst performance of Carson Wentz’s career. Go figure.
The Sixers did have a chance to put this game away despite Joel’s struggles, so let’s start there:
Picking it up around the 1:30 mark with the Sixers leading 96-94:
That led to a run out and Ben Simmons turnover, which you can see right here:
After watching that about 15 times, I think I’m in the camp of people who think he just made a bad pass. It was definitely there. The lob was there, and that play was made by the excellent defense played on the prior Toronto possession.
The Raptors would go on to hit a couple of free throws off that turnover and take a three point lead, which then brought us down to a final attempt off a SLOB play, right here:
Not great awareness from Simmons to chuck up a turnaround 30-footer with time on the clock. He had enough time to gather, turn, and either take a better shot or pass to somebody else instead.
Said Brett Brown on that:
“We get a shot and an offensive rebound. There was more time available, maybe to find something else. And I give Toronto’s defense credit.”
He didn’t really say anything about Ben specifically.
The Sixers went miss/miss/turnover/miss/miss to finish the game, and that was just in the final 1:30 of play. If you go back further you find a couple of Embiid bricks and a charging call, plus a lost ball turnover.
Ugly stuff all around, not dissimilar from how they executed down the stretch against Toronto in games four and seven last season. We’ve said 100 times before that this is where they needed to improve the most if they were gonna advance to the finals this year.
He was getting double teamed all night long and had difficulty dealing with it.
If you go through Joel’s shot chart, he was settling for mid-range jump shots and three-pointers and only managed two shots inside the paint the entire night, which also explains the lack of free throw attempts:
Said Brett Brown of Embiid’s night:
It’s all about him quarterbacking the gym. They double teamed him on every single catch. I thought there were times he did a really good job of inviting that and passing out of it. We shot a lot of threes because they doubled him and that’s what the game produced. I thought we did a pretty good job from time to time of getting off the post, passing it around and trying to find his floor spots. I think you give Marc Gasol, a former defensive player of the year credit, and you give Toronto credit. It was a long night for Joel.
The Sixers went 15-40 from three last night, which is 10 three pointers above their season average. It’s also a 37.5% number, which is good, but it’s a little unbalanced from a macro-level. In the wins against San Antonio and Miami, they shot fewer than 30 attempts and did a lot more damage inside and from mid-range.
I put together a clip of everything Embiid shot last night:
Was he tired?
Brown was asked if Embiid was fatigued and said “I don’t know.”
Here’s what he said, via Keith Pompey at the Inquirer:
“I didn’t look fatigued and I was definitely not fatigued,” said Embiid, who had a game-high 13 rebounds.
He believes the Raptors’ defensive scheme was the difference. Embiid said Toronto forced him into a lot of tough shots.
“Marc didn’t help on the picks I was setting,” Embiid said, “and on the post, obviously they were doubling from the time the ball was in the air.
“When you’re not making shots, it’s tough. But I tried to take advantage of it by setting screens and holding it until my teammates got open.”
Some of that burden could have been relieved by Embiid being in better shape, because he’d be able to work Gasol in space instead of dribbling himself into difficult elbow jumpers. I know everybody wants Embiid to “get his ass in the post,” but he’s nine years younger than Gasol and should theoretically be able to do more against him from areas outside the paint. Brett Brown could have quite easily pulled him as well, the same way he did with Horford in the second half of the Knicks game.
The Sixers could have also used aggressive Ben Simmons in attacking the rim. He was an assist machine early in the game but passed on some chances to take the ball to the rack, which is always going to be a balancing act with him. He threw 14 assists in this game but turned it over seven times, and while the aggression did surface in the third quarter, it disappeared again in the fourth.
It’s nothing new, but the Sixers are only going to go as far as Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons take them. They’re the superstars.