The common thought going into this game was that the Sixers definitely would not shoot as poorly as they did on Sunday night. No way would they go 39% from the floor. No way would they clank even more shots after putting on a bricklaying exhibition on night one in Tampa.

That turned out to be true.

Doc Rivers’ team looked so much better on the offensive end, knocking down 17 three pointers and going 26-30 from the foul line. Field goal percentage was up, foul shooting was much better, and they pretty much hit their open shots after shooting a pitiful 28.3% on uncontested looks on Sunday evening.

“I thought our guys overall played great,” said Rivers. “I thought our defense was probably one of the top two or three (performances) of the year, as far as sustained defense through the game. I was really proud of that. The turnovers hurt us. They forced 18. But I thought Joel (Embiid) was great with the ball and made the right decisions. We made the right decisions. That’s how you win games.”

The offensive storyline centers around Joel Embiid, who turned the ball over six times and only shot 3-13 from the floor. Toronto again played that hard trapping game, and they’re one of the best NBA teams when it comes to recovery and close-out defense.


As a result, Embiid only finished with 18 points, 11 of which were scored at the stripe, but his teammates really helped carry the scoring burden on a down night. Furkan Korkmaz poured in 19, Tobias Harris scored 23, and Shake Milton had 11 off the bench while playing with the starting unit down the stretch, in Seth Curry’s absence. He hit a couple of big threes in the fourth quarter.

“The way Toronto plays with the trapping and all of that, we needed another guy that could put the ball on the floor and make a play, and that’s why we put Shake out there,” Rivers said. “I thought he handled it pretty well.”

“If you go through the first three and a half quarters, I thought it was a pretty low turnover game,” the head coach continued. “And I’ll take the way we played there. I didn’t like how we closed the game out. We kind of let up and made some bad plays, bad turnovers, careless plays. So I didn’t like that. But overall, you see that 18 (turnover) number and we look at that, but in the meat of the game we didn’t turn it over much, so I look more at that.”

It’s true that they were pretty solid throughout, and that things didn’t come off the rails until the end of the game. They’ve had a couple of recent contests now where they take their foot off the gas and throttle it down to second gear, and you’d like to see them put these teams away.

But to Doc’s point, six of their 18 turnovers took place in the 4th quarter, which is 33%. And if you look at Embiid’s six turnovers, only three had to do with double teams. One was a failed backdoor pass off a countered double stagger, and the second was on the goofy play where Aron Baynes lost the ball on a shot attempt, then tried to box out Joel while not touching the ball. Embiid threw the bad pass while laying on the ground. The third was on a jump ball, and I clipped all of them for your viewing pleasure:

There’s no Embiid turnover problem. He didn’t have a great game, but his per-36 turnover number currently sits at 3.7, which is a career low. He’s improved on that number yearly since his rookie season, and he’s been fantastic this season passing out of double teams and feeling pressure. He just had an off night. It happens.

Pop that Kork

Korkmaz got a start in place of the injured Seth Curry, and holy cow was he due for a game like this. He needed it badly, having hit just one of his last 16 three pointers dating back to the Portland road game.

Furkan went 5-11 from three, with every single attempt coming from deep. He went 4-4 from the foul line, grabbed seven rebounds, and added two assists in what amounted to the best game he’s played this season.

The irony is that Korkmaz lost his rotation gig two days ago, and played just two minutes in the Sunday loss, with Isaiah Joe working his way into the second unit.

“With the starters, he has to do less, which allowed him to do more,” Rivers said. “He didn’t have to put the ball on the floor as much. He allowed the game to come to him. With trapping Joel, one of the thoughts before the game, was that if Seth can’t play, who’s our next best spot-up shooter? And Furk was the guy. So he really came through for us.”

“For me, that was a good challenge, because I needed one of these games,” Korkmaz admitted. “The last four or five games, I was struggling, we can definitely say that. But Doc trusted me and gave me the confidence to start the game, and I think I did a good job. Everybody has some ups and downs in their careers, sometimes it’s just a few games, sometimes it’s 4-5 games. My (slump) has been a little bit longer than that. I’ve been through this a lot in my career, so I just have to find a way to get out of it quicker. I’m trying on the court and off the court, just working hard and I know it’s going to come. Today I hope was a good start for me again.”

One of the nice things about Furkan’s game was that he attempted and hit a number of corner threes, as you can see here:

The Sixers are a funky corner three team. From the left corner, they are 10 percentage points worse than the league average, but from the right corner, they’re +4%. The disparity is certainly interesting, but these are shots that analytics types love, because they are efficient and they generally show that you are spacing the floor and firing off these catch-and-shoot looks at a decent clip.

All Star snub?

Tobias Harris after getting snubbed from the ASG:

23 points on 8-12 shooting, 3-4 from three, 4-5 from the foul line, 7 rebounds, 5 assists, 2 blocks, 1 steal, and just 1 turnover.

More on this in a sidebar story later today, but he had a legitimate case to make the roster. He didn’t seem happy about the snub.