The Sixers now own road wins over the 52-18 Milwaukee Bucks and 47-21 Golden State Warriors, which is pretty damn good.

Fantastic victory Sunday afternoon, and one they really needed. They didn’t need just any old win, since they’ve now ripped off four straight, but what they needed was a statement win, a solid W against a top-four Eastern Conference squad to build confidence and show the greater NBA community that maybe this team does have what it takes to get out of round two. This win was good for the mental health of Philly sports fans, writers, radio hosts, and their spouses. It will give us two days of a natural high until Boston comes to town Wednesday night with the Sixers returning home on the second night of a back-to-back.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. Let’s talk about the pair of weekend wins, which I’ve wrapped into one Monday morning post, honestly because I was exhausted on Saturday morning and needed to recharge the batteries.

I re-watched the final eight minutes of the Bucks game this morning, and this is what jumped out to me:

• I liked Brett Brown’s timeout around the eight minute mark, which paused and essentially reset the game when the Sixers failed to snag a couple of loose balls after bricking one three pointer off the side of the backboard and air balling another.
• Joel did take too many three-pointers, and the one that stood out to me was when Giannis tried a three around the 7 minute mark and he followed suit with his own attempt on the other end. After that miss, on the very next possession, he went to the rack for a spin move, and-1, to extend the lead back to nine. He dialed it back when it mattered, and then went back to the arc for the clutch shot near the end of the game.
• Incredibly difficult stuff was going down for Jimmy Butler. A step back 22-footer? Driving straight into Giannis? That’s elite, high-level execution.
• I also liked Brett’s timeout at the 4:28 mark, when Pat Connaughton answered Butler three with a three of his own. That was another “let’s kill off momentum and manage the game” type of timeout.
• Most of what the Sixers were running down the stretch was simple pick and roll and some half court iso. They didn’t go to their typical elbow or ’12’ sets, not that I saw. They did go to a horns set where Ben was blocked off before getting to the rim, resulting in a Jimmy Butler 12 footer that was missed. They ran it again, this time with the elbow curl, around the 1:15 mark.
• Sloppy turnover with Joel looking for JJ backdoor when the offense turned into a two-man set around the 2:30 mark. That was the only poor possession they had down the stretch.
• The Embiid ball-fake and drawn foul was ridiculous and totally killed off Milwaukee momentum after a pair of Khris Middleton threes.
• After Giannis dunked all over Simmons and called him a “fucking baby,” Simmons stuffed a putback dunk in his face. What an outrageous sequence that was. I’m really happy the refs kept the whistles silent and didn’t go for any technicals there. Let grown men play a grown man sport.
• I originally had no clue what was going on with the pair of timeouts under two minutes, because the broadcast just sat on this camera shot of the Sixers’ bench for 10 seconds. I’m not sure the broadcast crew realized that Philly used a second timeout to advance the ball, which I guess was a smart move considering the fact that they couldn’t make it past half court on the most recent play. In that case, you forfeit that second timeout later to help yourself now.
• Just a random asterisk type of note here, but Malcolm Brogdon is a good defender and his absence does make a difference out there.

I highly doubt that Milwaukee shoots 16-50 from three again. Nikola Mirotic probably isn’t chucking up another 0-6 night anytime soon.

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