Sixers

Ten Thoughts: Joel Embiid Delivers Another Masterclass in Solid Road Win

By Kevin Kinkead

Published: Mar 17th, 2022 · 9:16 AM EDT

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With Jarrett Allen out of the lineup, birthday boy Joel Embiid played another MVP-level game on Wednesday night, dropping 35 and 17 with five assists and just three turnovers. The Sixers ran out to a big lead, then tried to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, but rallied for a quality road win against a playoff team.

This morning we’re gonna switch it up and do numbered observations:

1) In the final three minutes of the game, the Sixers shot 2-2 from the floor and 8-8 from the foul line. They didn’t miss. That’s excellent offensive closing in a herky jerky, start/stop kind of game, and it canceled out some poor defense on the other end, with some unnecessary contact putting Cleveland on the line and keeping the game close.

2) This was the 18th game with 35+ points for Embiid. It was the ninth game with 15+ rebounds. And you look at his assist to turnover ratio and it’s the best its ever been. I think people kind of lose track of the fact that in addition to putting up these huge numbers, he is higher use and making better passes and better decisions at the same time. He’s really come so far in such a short amount of time.

Joel Embiid wishes he got to celebrate his birthday with his family.

James Harden: "We're your family, though" 😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/8XP7OwiK0S

— NBC Sports Philadelphia (@NBCSPhilly) March 17, 2022

3) James Harden still can’t hit anything from beyond. He was 5-12 from the floor and 1-6 from three and hasn’t had a good deep shooting night in a while. Still, he’s putting up 20+ points in these games because he continues to get to the foul line and he’s now gone for double-digit assists in six of his nine Sixers games.

4) If DeAndre Jordan isn’t already cooked, then the oven timer is about to go off. Great player back in the day, but he’s a tough watch out there. The Sixers might regret not giving Paul Reed and Charles Bassey a deeper look earlier in the season, instead of scraping the bottom of the barrel for an Andre Drummond replacement. It’s like Matt Klentak looking for a mid-season bullpen addition.

5) Quality Tobias Harris game. He’s playing a little quicker and pulling the trigger with more assertiveness. He was the one guy who seemed to be struggling to find his place after the Harden addition, but it’s good to see him start to settle in a bit.

6) There was a stretch of time in this game where Tyrese Maxey was out there with four bench players. Doc really needs to stick with what he promised, and make sure two of Maxey/Embiid/Harris/Harden are out there together. There’s just not enough oomph on the bench to get through these stretches positively. They are a top-heavy team since the trade. Furkan Korkmaz has fallen off the face of the Earth and Danny Green isn’t the guy he was last year. The bench stays afloat if Georges Niang is hitting shots, but they have little beyond that.

7) It’s kind of funny because we thought Harden might take on more of the fourth quarter closing duty, but it was a committee approach last night and the two field goals were hit by Embiid and Maxey. Harden was fantastic at the free throw line, and plays a significant role receiving those inbound passes and getting to the stripe, but there’s still so much going through Embiid in clutch time, which keeps his yearly stats super high:

NBA’s Clutch Leaders –

Points: Joel Embiid
Blocks: Joel Embiid
Buckets: Joel Embiid
Free Throws: Joel Embiid

Embiid in the final 5 minutes of games –

• 49% FG
• 45% 3P
• 74% FT

He’s also the only player w at least 5 steals and 10 blocks in crunch time.

— Brock Knows Ball (@LandesBrock) March 16, 2022

8) Some people don’t like the clutch stat, but I’m not entirely sure why. It’s the most important thing in a game, closing. The Sixers have needed to improve in this area and other than Niang throwing one off the side of the backboard earlier this week, they’ve been better with this.

According to NBA data, the Sixers are 21-16 in games that went into clutch time, i.e. plus or minus five-points with five minutes or less on the clock. They have the 12th best FG% in these situations and 8th best 3P%, while hitting 74.6% of their foul shoots. That last number actually has to come up, because they are the #1 FT team overall, at 82.1%. There should not be that big of a drop off there when games get close.

9) We got some Isaiah Joe minutes in this game. Doc just always seems to give him a short leash though. It feels like Bob Huggins coaching a college kid. One foul and he’s yanked. With the bench being nothing spectacular right now, he really has to figure out what he has in Joe/Reed/Bassey/etc, because Doc did not do enough bench experimentation last year and it hurt them in the playoffs.

10) Ho hum, Maxey with a quiet 25 points. 9-15 from the floor, 3-6 from three. Even with the Brooklyn and Orlando clunkers, he’s averaging 18.8 points this month while shooting 46.5% from beyond. It’s really incredible how far he’s come in such a short amount of time, and the coaching staff deserves a lot of credit for turning him into a budding star. Maxey is gonna get paid when the Sixers get off the Harris contract, and Klutch will be very happy to “secure the bag,” as the kids like to say.

Tyrese Maxey, as he describes James Harden’s playmaking first approach and team-first mentality, notes that he thinks Harden is dying to win and that’s why he’s approaching the game this way. “He’s the oldest guy in the starting lineup. Jesus, he’s old.”

— Kyle Neubeck (@KyleNeubeck) March 17, 2022