It wasn’t the matchup we were hoping for, but a win is a win.

The Sixers dispatched the short-handed Nets on Wednesday night to claim the season series 2-1, take control of a possible tiebreaker scenario, and move a game ahead of Brooklyn atop the Eastern Conference.

Steve Nash was without Kevin Durant, James Harden, Blake Griffin, and LaMarcus Aldridge on Wednesday night, a combination of injury and load management problems following the postponement of Monday night’s game in Minnesota. That resulted in Brooklyn having to play a road back-to-back on Tuesday/Wednesday instead.

And it put the Sixers into one of those lose/lose situations, because if:

  1. they win, they were supposed to win
  2. if they lose, it’s a really bad loss
  3. if they win, but not convincingly, then questions are asked among fans and within the media

We got scenario number three, with the Sixers blowing a late lead and having to close the game out at the foul line while the half court offense went to shit. Tobias Harris was limping around, which resulted in Doc Rivers keeping him on the bench. It felt like something that was close to being disastrous, but Rivers downplayed it afterward:

“It happens, it’s a long season. Again, I don’t overdo this kind of stuff. We knew who was on the floor, too. Just how we knew who was off, if you know what I mean. It was a let down. We kind of let off. It happens, but we won the game. I’m glad we didn’t blow the game. I’ve been in games like this where you lose them, but we got up 18 or 20 and I thought we should have been up way more. I thought our transition D was the only bad part of the game. I don’t overdo the end of game, when hustle guys come in and other guys let up. What I didn’t like throughout the game, transition D wise we were not very good, and that’s an area of concern.”

It’s good that Rivers doesn’t blow these things out of proportion, but it doesn’t mean there’s not an issue. The Sixers should have closed this game out comfortably. Instead they let a Brooklyn bench unit throw them out of whack and had to win the game at the foul line, because they couldn’t do anything in the half court down the stretch after blowing a huge lead.

Late game execution, or lack thereof

It got a little funky at the end, partly because the Ben Simmons spacing problem reared its ugly head.

We haven’t seen much of it this season, and Rivers has done a good job of mitigating the problem, but there were some instances late in the fourth where Nic Claxton was just sagging off Simmons while the Sixers were attempting to play entry passes for Joel Embiid.

Kyle Neubeck over at Voice pulled this still from one of those instances:

That could be a drive and kick situation there. Take the space, since we know he isn’t shooting that shot. Or just rotate it to the other side of the floor.

Instead, Simmons threw that pass and went to dive, which resulted in four guys surrounding two Sixers with Embiid unable to make the skip pass because he was being blanketed:

If Harris was on the floor, you let him initiate with Embiid and put Simmons in the dunker spot instead, because his defender can’t leave a guy wide open on the weakside under the rim. The Sixers have typically done that with Ben over the years, and continue to do it under Rivers.

All told, Ben did have a pretty good game. He was aggressive early, tossed nine assists, and only turned the ball over once. He took double-digit field goals attempts for the first time in a while and was defensively pretty sound. This specific spacing issue only manifest itself during these late-game, half court situations, and right now there’s nothing they can do with him other than standing him in the dunker spot and letting somebody else initiate instead.

It’s frustrating, but preventable.

Matchup issues

If these teams meet in the playoffs, we’re going to have an absolutely fascinating chess match in terms of how these squads match up defensively.

We didn’t learn a ton about that on Wednesday, but the Sixers opened with Ben Simmons on Kyrie Irving, who also got some time going up against Matisse Thybulle and Danny Green. Here’s the matchup data we were given at NBA Stats:

Irving was hitting everything early on, and then slowed down a bit and remained on the bench when the Nets made their run.

Looking forward, we think Seth Curry will just stick with Joe Harris in a playoff matchup. Simmons likely shifts to Durant for size purposes, and then I’d put Tobias Harris on the suddenly deferential James Harden and that gives you Danny Green or George Hill to handle Kyrie Irving, unless you want to try Thybulle in the starting unit. Not sure if that’s the best way to do it.

But you see what I mean? It’s hard to figure out. You need, bare minimum, four capable perimeter defenders because Brooklyn has multiple scoring threats out there. You saw them flush some of these guys into the paint last night, where Embiid can alter shots, and that’s going to be a big emphasis if these teams meet up again.

And you have to ask the same questions of Brooklyn. They have absolutely nobody to guard Embiid. And Harris was a problem for them Wednesday night as well. While the Nets score the 2nd most points in the NBA, just a shade under 120, the Sixers score 113.7, which is 10th. So it’s not out of the question to turn around and ask Steve Nash how he’s going to handle the Embiid/Harris combo and prevent the Sixers from hunting Irving and Harris. They have just as many questions to answer as the Sixers do, and Philly has a veteran, title-winning coach going up against a first-year guy. That should be a huge advantage if we get this matchup.

Other notes:

  • This was Ben Simmons’ best assist/turnover game since February. Also double digit field goal attempts for only the second time this month, which is crazy. That number dropped from 11.7 to 7.7 from March to April.
  • I had multiple screens going last night (Union/Sixers/Phillies) and didn’t hear too much of what was being said, but those squeeze boxes with the gambling guys on ESPN+ seemed very.. frequent, right? I’d like to go back and watch another one of those broadcasts and pay more attention.
  • Claxton is good. I’m impressed.
  • Furkan Korkmaz should be a better free throw shooter. He always gets into these situations where he seems to miss one of two in critical moments at the foul line.
  • For the love of God, Seth Curry needs to shoot more.
  • Embiid didn’t even play very well and still had 39 points while shooting 91% from the line. I do think he’s taking too many three pointers since returning from injury, but DeAndre Jordan gave him some clean looks last night, so he took them.
  • My biggest worry in a Sixers/Nets matchup is Brooklyn’s ability to score in bunches, and when they move transitionally the Sixers are going to get cross-matches that they don’t want. If the Nets string together these 6-7 point type of mini-runs, it’s gonna be hard to keep pace. We’ll see.