Weird game for the Sixers last night, who could have turtled up and quit after losing Joel Embiid to a first-half ankle injury, just a few days after losing Ben Simmons to a left knee dislocation.

It seemed like doom and gloom at halftime, then Brett Brown’s team came out looking like the 2015 Warriors in the third quarter, clawing in front on the strength of three-point shooting and a Josh Richardson-turned-Kobe Bryant performance.

Then it fell apart in the fourth quarter with Damian Lillard going on an 8-2 run, all by himself, before a final sequence in which Richardson was grabbed by Carmelo Anthony prior to the inbound.

We don’t do a lot of complaining about the refs at Crossing Broad, because if you take care of business and make the plays available to you, the game shouldn’t hinge on a blown call or two. But clearly Anthony had a grip of Richardson’s jersey here, which caused him to fall on this zipper cut before recovering to receive the Alec Burks pass:

Not the best image quality of all time, but here’s the shirt pull:

See it the tug?

Hang on, let’s zoom in so far that it appears to be distorted, but actually gives us CLEAR EVIDENCE of the infraction:

Should have been two free throws and regained possession, since the foul occurred prior to the inbound, but I guess the ref staring right at the play didn’t see it.

Here’s what J Rich had to say about the sequence after the game:

“Yeah, so I set a screen, ‘Melo switched on to me and I was cutting to the top of the key. My whole jersey got pulled, and no call. I fell and then got up, and I feel like I got a decent look at it, but I think there was a big miss on that play.”

Disappointing end to a 13-20 shooting night for Richardson, who poured-in 34 points and played his best bubble game yet.

The Sixers overall shot nearly 47% from three, and went small at times in the second half to make up for Embiid’s absence. They just didn’t have an answer for Lillard, and got 50-pieced for the second time in five games, resulting in Brett Brown again being asked if he would do anything differently, in hindsight, to try to cool off a scorching-hot player.

“Everybody goes to (blitzing a ball handler),” Brown said. “Whenever somebody scores 50, they ask that question, and it’s a fair question, the first question we ask ourselves when we go into it with T.J. Warren or Damian Lillard. I think the thing you get worried about is the ripple effect of scrambling. We had a lead and the three ball worries me the most. The way they generate three pointers the most is when people blitz Damian Lillard. They get into scrambles and so on. They were down one and they have seven points to go up six. You’re always questioning it. It’s not always correct to think that you have to blitz. We had J Rich and Matisse on him, our two best wing defensive players. You shake his hand, the way he ended the game.”

“It’s Dame Lillard, probably one of the top-three scoring point guards in the league,” Richardson added. “It’s hard to stop a guy like that, but you do your best to contain him. I think there were a few plays where I was playing him for a screen and the screen didn’t end up coming, so he ended up getting a straight line, but that’s just things you have to look at after.”

To blitz, or not to blitz?

That is the question, as William Shakespeare once wrote.

When we use the term “blitz” in basketball, we’re talking about a hard double team of the ball handler, with the goal of forcing him to pass. In this scenario, the Sixers would be sending a second defender at Lillard to get the ball out of his hands, which then results in a bit of a rotational scramble and recover as Portland looks for the open man. Problem with that is that C.J. McCollum and Carmelo Anthony (and their young guys) are good three-point shooters as well, hence Brett’s trepidation with the tactic.

Here’s a video clip showing all of Lillard’s fourth quarter shots:

The thing about Lillard, which makes him hard to defend, is that those starting points are insanely high. They’re setting screens for him 5-7 feet behind the three point line, and on the first shot, Matisse Thybulle goes over a screen, only for Lillard to pull up from way downtown. On the second possession, they play higher, and he goes backdoor. Then, if you overplay the screen angle, he’s got a ton of room to get downhill on those straight-line drives, as Richardson mentioned.

Look at this screen position; this is crazy:

Lillard’s right foot is still on the center circle logo when he begins that pick and roll.

The Sixers perhaps could have sold out a bit more and just committed to the blitz, one of which resulted in this steal from Matisse Thybulle just inside the two minute mark of the fourth quarter:

Makes you wonder.

But yeah, the positions Lillard occupies on the floor make him really difficult to defend. The rules for going over and under screens are totally flipped upside down because you have to pick him up just a few feet inside half court, which is ridiculous. He’s a fun player to watch when he’s not ripping your team apart.

Other notes:

  • I appreciated Al Horford’s offensive foul and ensuing technical. Nice to see him actually get mean and show a different side.
  • Alec Burks as a ball handler has been a much-needed positive in the bubble.
  • Scoring points hasn’t been an issue for the Sixers. They gotta tighten up defensively when the playoffs begin.
  • Raul Neto is out of the rotation.
  • Good to see Glenn Robinson back out there. He was 2-5 in 17 minutes.
  • Sixers turned it over 15 times but only allowed 11 points off those turnovers.
  • 14 offensive boards and 22 second chance points for your team.
  • Huge disparity in the Blazers going 27-29 from the line and the Sixers shooting 13-17. Without Embiid and Simmons they just weren’t getting to the stripe.
  • No timeline for Embiid, no real update, but the fact he was on the bench and smiling and whatnot is a good sign.