The Philadelphia 76ers have secured yet another win, their fifth straight. The lowly Washington Wizards didn’t go down easily but still proved to be no match for the Sixers, who won 146-128.
Joel Embiid kicked the Wizards' butts up and down the court in the third quarter and finished with 48 points. Tyrese Maxey tallied a career-high 11 assists along with 22 points. Nicolas Batum and De'Anthony Melton each shot the ball very well from deep. Robert Covington made the first three-ball of his second Sixers stint. Tobias Harris provided key supplemental scoring once again. The Wizards' offense exploded but the Sixers' offense simply exploded more.
Let's jump into the Sixers' film.
5. If it ain’t broke…
Emptying out the left side and letting Embiid and Maxey go to work was all the Sixers had to do in the third quarter. Embiid said he noticed that Washington had no answer for it early on the Sixers simply spammed it. The Wizards had no resistance for Maxey and paid the price for it, getting dimed to death before Maxey took it himself after they adjusted to take the screen away.
On this play, the other three Sixers help open up the floor for Embiid by running a double pindown for Melton. Jordan Poole starts the play guarding him but points up to Melton as he moves, implying that he wants the Wizards to switch. But they don’t. And he's so preoccupied with that that he doesn’t see the feed to Embiid. By that time, it's too late.
Poole isn’t going to stop Embiid one-on-one but he could have prevented him from going right to the rim if he had been in a position to take a charge. All he can do is make a smart business decision. The Wizards adjusted by bringing Kyle Kuzma over to the rim. Maxey got him out of the way by threatening to pass to the corner, making Kuzma shift over and leaving Embiid in one-on-one coverage.
The Sixers will probably go back to this set often, though perhaps not possession after possession.
4. Melton gets his swagger back
Prior to this game, Melton had made just six of his 22 shots from deep and 12 of his 42 overall shots. He has been overtasked with being a ball-handler since the Sixers are so devoid of it following the Harden trade. He hasn’t gotten as many of his normal spot-up looks as a result and hasn’t taken advantage of the ones he has gotten. In this one, he posted a season-high in points, field goals made and threes made, making four straight.
Here, Maxey running the dribble handoff with Kelly Oubre Jr. gives him space to get past his own man, forcing help not only from Maxey's defender but Harris' defender. Once that defender, Deni Avdija, turns his head to Harris, he's cutting right to the middle of the floor. Poole has to leave his man to make sure Harris isn’t wide open on the block. And his man is none other than Melton.
Meton has been in the NBA for too long to suddenly turn into a poor shooter. He'll find his rhythm again. Perhaps this game is where he gets it back.
3. Hustle and heads-up passing
Nicolas Batum might not have had an assist in his impressive debut but that doesn’t mean his smart passing wasn’t fully on display. Patrick Beverley's hustle buys him a chance to show it.
Beverley gets his own rebound — admittedly not a ton of hustle but he does stay with it — and swings it to Batum as he relocates to the corner. Although he has the space to fire away, he swings it to Furkan Korkmaz quickly. It wasn’t solely a decision to pass up a shot he didn’t like from Batum. It was to take advantage of the defense hurrying over to his side of the floor.
Korkmaz, as he has shown previously, is adept at driving right off the catch. This time, Eugene Omoruyi tries to slide his feet but isn’t quick enough and isn’t in a great guarding position. Korkmaz gets to the foul line and comes away with just half of the prize. Passes that lead to shooting fouls aren’t tracked as assists but they serve the same functional purpose. Batum may not have many more games with a donut in the assist column of his stat line.
2. What happened to defense?
The Sixers offense was clicking against the Wizards but their defense was not. Covered up by the fact that they scored a whopping 120 points through three quarters was the fact that a mediocre offense had scored 98 in that time, too. Excluding garbage time, Washington tallied 119.1 points per 100 possessions. The Sixers' cartoonishly large 147.8 mark shouldn’t excuse them from such a rough showing on defense.
In this game, the Sixers showed what they can do in a shootout. There will be plenty of more games like this throughout the season and fighting fire with fire will be necessary at times. But if their opponent is actually good, not having the option to extinguish or tamper the flames on the other side could burn them.
Philly’s perimeter defense was disgustingly bad in this game. There are plenty of breakdowns to go through. Getting caught on screens, letting Wizards ball-handlers get a step on them and numerous miscommunications gave Washington more life in the game than it deserved. One such play has me asking one question over and over again.
What in the world is Oubre doing here?
It would be understandable if Oubre mistakenly thinks the Sixers are playing zone, as his position in a 2-3 would likely be the corner. But Philly didn’t play zone previously in this game. It's possible that Nurse called for it before that possession and that Philly would have played it in the subsequent possessions if the Wizards hadn’t gotten out in transition.
However, if the Sixers were truly playing zone, Embiid would have rotated into the corner and let Oubre tag Gafford as he rolled. There's no rotation at all to Kuzma, who scored some of the easiest of his season-high 28 points to pitch in on a run that led to a Philly timeout.
Oubre might not be the one who is totally at fault, though. Harris shouts something after the bucket and I think he's saying “Melt!” which refers to Melton. Melton is clearly guarding Avdija here but he had been guarding Poole throughout the entire game. He's the one who is left wide open — as evidenced by his skipping and pointing. Him being so open forced Harris to rotate quickly and he made the easy pass to Kuzma.
Although Melton may have taken Oubre's matchup, it's on Oubre to recognize that and get to someone else as quickly as possible. Regardless of how the share of the blame is split, the Sixers can’t afford mistakes like this against good teams.
1. How to beat a zone
When asked after the game about the Wizards going to a zone defense, Embiid said it just takes one thing to beat that kind of defense.
“It's no secret that to be the zone, all you have to do is put the ball in the middle,” Embiid said, adding that the Sixers were looking to “find that sweet spot. We just kept doing it.”
After spamming the pick-and-roll with Maxey, Embiid found success sauntering into the middle of the floor and rising right up for a jumper. After the feed from Beverley here, he's met with a quick double team. He keeps the ball high and kicks it back out to Harris, who swings it to a wide-open Maxey in the corner. Easy.
The Wizards doubling with two perimeter players and leaving Gafford in the paint shows how much they respect Embiid. Kuzma has to make the difficult rotation to three different guys because they don’t want to leave the paint unoccupied.
Zone defense has been a bane to the Sixers' recent existence. With their newfound focus on constant ball movement and quick decisions — plus the inclusion of Batum into the lineup — they should have a much easier time picking it apart.
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