3 observations: Joel Embiid, Sixers make it look easy, beat Pacers
The Philadelphia 76ers had a rough weekend when they fell in overtime at home to a bad Cleveland Cavaliers team. They took out all of their anger and frustration on Monday against the Indiana Pacers.
The Sixers received another big performance out of Joel Embiid who dropped 24 points and 13 rebounds with five assists in 27 minutes against Indiana’s talented big man duo of Domantas Sabonis and Myles Turner and he led Philadelphia to a 130-114 win as the team led by as many as 31. Not bad for a guy who was questionable leading into this one.
Ben Simmons added 18 points and six rebounds, Shake Milton was big off the bench and he led the Sixers with 26 points, Furkan Korkmaz had 19 points, Mike Scott had 11 in a start, and Seth Curry added seven points and five assists.
With that said, here are the three observations in this one:
Ball movement returning
The best offense the Sixers have right now continues to be when they’re able to run the break and get out in transition, but in the half-court, when they’re able to move the ball out on the perimeter and work it around, that is when they are able to create some easy looks from deep. The ball movement created open looks for Curry as well as Korkmaz to be able to get back on track shooting the ball. A lot of that was due to Embiid attracting so much attention and then being able to make the right decision out of the double teams. There were two plays in the first half that set the tone for him in that area. Indiana sent one aggressive double team and he was then able to kick it out to an open Korkmaz who missed it, but that was a great look. The other came when he threw a perfect cross-court pass to Korkmaz in the corner who made the shot from deep.
Help from the bench
One just had a feeling that Milton was going to get back on track soon. He was constantly getting to the basket and he had a lot of good looks that just weren’t dropping for him. He was in his bag in this one and he had 15 points in the opening half giving the team a big spark in that area. He had a highlight move when he dropped Turner with a crossover and drilled a jumper. Milton being able to knock down some triples obviously helps as well and he's continuing his development as a point guard a bit. He did not have a large number of assists, but he was making some impressive passes that helped with the offense. Even Korkmaz was able to get some shots to fall which is obviously huge for the bench. He had been struggling since breaking out a bit on Feb. 23 when he made five triples and his production is so important to the bench unit’s success on offense. When he is making his open looks, he makes a difference in their offensive game.
Transition defense issues
This has been an issue for the majority of the season for Philadelphia. Too many times in this one, the Pacers were just beating the Sixers down the floor and they were getting some easy looks off of it. It seemed like Philadelphia was just lost in trying to get back as guys were trying to figure out who they were supposed to pick up and who was getting back and protecting the rim. Coach Doc Rivers called a timeout less than two minutes into the third quarter after Indiana was getting open for too many looks and that seemed to fix things in that aspect of the game. Fortunately, the Sixers were able to have the success they had on the offensive end to negate this problem and they had the right energy in order to get it done, but getting back in transition has to be a priority. At some point, this is a problem that must be fixed or it can come back to bite them when the playoffs roll around.
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