Sixers vs. Pistons on 10/28/21 won’t go down as an instant classic, but the home team got the W on Thursday night. A win is a win.

Joel Embiid, who wasn’t 100% coming into the game, went off for 30, and looked more like the guy we saw last year, the guy who got to the foul line and just killed opposing teams from the stripe. He shot 13-15 from the line and 8-19 from the floor, and his shot chart looked so much more congruent with what he was successfully doing during his MVP runner-up year:

Embiid played 31 minutes in the win, which featured another fourth quarter scoring drought. Second time this season the Sixers have struggled to close out a home game. This time around, they were up 100-78 with 6:34 on the clock, and then proceeded to be outscored 24-10 the rest of the way. It got as close as five points with 1:06 remaining, before Embiid put it to bed with a step-back three-pointer.

Along the way, the Sixers did this with their post-6:34 possessions:

  • Andre Drummond offensive foul
  • Shake Milton misses tough, turnaround five-footer
  • (starters subbed back in)
  • Tyrese Maxey turnover
  • Embiid missed three (catch and shoot)
  • Embiid on the line, hits 1/2
  • Tobias Harris stripped at the rim
  • Seth Curry on the line, hits 2/2
  • Harris missed three (open look)
  • Danny Green missed three (open look)
  • Embiid on the line, hits 2/2
  • Embiid on the line, hits 2/2
  • Embiid misses 15 footer
  • Maxey blocked, Sixers keep possession timeout, Embiid ices it with three


They really needed those free throws to survive, because nobody hit anything down the stretch. And they did it by committee, too. Looks for Harris, Embiid, Green, and Maxey getting some of the ball, too. The Sixers don’t have a pure perimeter closer, and last year closed mostly through Embiid and Harris, but it’s a huge ask to give the ball to a big and say “do your thing,” regardless of the fact that we’re playing positionless basketball in 2021.

Said Doc Rivers after the game:

“We played well tonight, we just were sloppy on offense. We had too many turnovers. It’s rare. I’ll tell you actually how well we played. It’s rare you win a game when the other team has 13 more shots than you and they did, so we were fortunate.”

The Sixers turned the ball over 20 times, compared to Detroit’s 12. Throw in the -3 offensive rebounding margin and that’s a recipe for losing the volume battle.

Doc, on blowing the big lead:

“I felt like we should’ve been up by 20 and it was like a three-point game because we were so sloppy with the ball. Didn’t see open guys and then tonight, just from a coaching standpoint, very frustrating cause I just thought we were trying to do the right things… we just kept shooting ourselves in the foot, turning it over in transition.”

Embiid is playing through an early-season knee knock because, we think, he wants to step it up in Ben Simmons’ absence, but also because he knows he would have won MVP last year if he simply appeared in more games.

He addressed that postgame:

“I’m just trying to be available for my teammates and my team, every single night playing hard, trying to do the best job I can but that has nothing to do with anything and every single year I come in with the mindset of playing as many games as I can, and this year obviously that first game is unfortunate, it happened, I got hit during the first game and it kind of handicapped me but every single year I come in with the mindset that I got to play more game than I have in the past and so far this year I am on the right path and whatever I am needed to do I am going to be doing it.”

Sixers vs. Hawks on Saturday. Revenge game after last year’s postseason shit show. Atlanta is 3-2 and coming off an 11-point loss to the Wizards, who are 4-1 and playing pretty well to begin this campaign.