Without Joel Embiid, the Sixers were destined for a fifth loss in five games on Sunday-evening. The script was easy and familiar to write.
Then, with its All-Star center sidelined by tightness in the back, the team made a tremendous turnaround in the fourth quarter, coming back from a 20-point deficit in the second half to beat the Pacers at Bankers Life Fieldhouse , 119-110.
Ben Simmons had 21 points, seven assists, six rebounds, four steals and two blocks. Tobias Harris posted 27 points and eight rebounds in the win for the Sixers, who improved to 15-6 this season.
Harris scored 10 points in 4-for-5 shots in the last period and now apparently has a Chappelle’s Show-inspired nickname.
“When Tobias came into play, I went to see him,” Dwight Howard said. ‘I said,’ Hey, don’t settle. No one can guard you on the floor. Don’t settle. Go get buckets. And he did. He didn’t settle down, attacked the basket, put pressure on the edge, hit the referees and made big shots and big plays. I call him Prince Harris, because before the last game it was ‘Game, blouses’ against the Lakers. So now he is Prince Harris. “
The Sixers return to the action on Wednesday with a game against the Hornets, the final game of their three-game road trip. Here are comments on their Sunday night win:
Bradley starts, Simmons sees time as the focus
Tony Bradley got his first start of the season as head coach Doc Rivers preferred to keep Howard with the team’s second unit.
The fourth-year big man had a challenging assignment against an All-Star in Domantas Sabonis, but he held his own to open the match, in part because the Sixers were lucky that Sabonis missed some open pick-and-pop jumpers. Still, Bradley looked solid enough and didn’t seem to be doing much wrong, although Indiana exposed his lack of foot speed after half time a bit more.
The collective energy of the Sixers and general readiness to play were no problem as it had been in their Monday night loss to the Pistons, and they jumped to an 8-0 lead. The team’s early shooting problems from Friday’s game against the Timberwolves then surfaced when Indiana scored a 14-2 run and the Sixers missed 12 of their first 17 field goal attempts.
Perhaps looking to see if a different strategy could change the game’s momentum, Rivers placed Simmons in the middle of the second quarter. While that setup didn’t work out badly, the Sixers couldn’t identify any clear advantages at either end of the floor. Rim protection and an overall lack of inner defense is still a clear flaw, a Sabonis exploited with a deep seal and finish in the paint against Harris.
As a change of pace or option in situations where Howard is particularly unfit to play, it makes sense that Rivers would want to try Simmons at the five. At the moment, however, it is not a panacea.
“I loved it, but we’re just not being organized fairly,” said Rivers. “(Assistant coach) Dave Joerger, we literally went crazy for the things we saw that we couldn’t do with (Simmons) in the five. And it’s a shame. We just didn’t have practice time.
“In the fourth quarter, Dave picks me up and says, ‘I don’t care what we do in these (next) two days of training, we’re going to be with Ben every five for at least 10 minutes.’ We’ve probably spent five minutes on it all year round. We just haven’t had enough time to work on it. There are things I’ve seen tonight that I think we can be very effective at. “
Bench comes big in the fourth
Howard was an active rebounder and physical fencer as usual, though free-throw shooting remained a weakness for the 35-year-old. After a 5-for-12 night on the foul line, he has made 48.4 percent of his free throws this season. He finished with 11 points and 15 rebounds in 25 minutes.
On these Embiid-less nights, the Sixers could certainly use special efforts from their complementary players. It didn’t seem like this was going to happen on Sunday as Danny Green and Seth Curry shot together 6 for 17.
Matisse Thybulle’s defense in the first half of Sunday was not as sparkling as in recent games. On his first stint, he was knocked behind the door by Brogdon and, unable to get on top of a ball screen, conceded a pull-up three-pointer to the Pacers guard.
Furkan Korkmaz lost his individual match against Doug McDermott in the first half, failing to follow him off the ball several times.
However, Thybulle and Korkmaz both made a host of pivotal moves during the Sixers’ fourth quarter rise, including Thybulle taking on Aaron Holiday, blocking a TJ McConnell lay-up, and turning a bargain into a Korkmaz fast -break three. Thybulle’s elite ability to force sales helps open the door for these kinds of unlikely reversals.
The young wing duo closed the game and played a vital role in the wild comeback of the Sixers. Korkmaz scored a season-high 17 points and Thybulle had four steals and two blocks.
Looking for stops, finding them late
Whether the league’s best post-up player is available or not, it’s hard to win matches where the opponent scores 95 points in three quarters. What went wrong in the Sixers’ defense for most of the game? Embiid’s absence is the no-brainer answer, along with strong games from Brogdon and Sabonis.
Schematically, the Sixers were much more fortunate in the fourth period with a 2-3 zone that got Indiana into trouble. The team did well to generate revenue from that zone and continued to compete hard, even when lagging far behind.
Rivers and the Sixers deserve huge credit for switching up the defenses and executing it so effectively with a look they haven’t used much this season.
Dan Burke, the Sixers’ defensive coordinator and a longtime assistant to the Pacers, came up with the idea of using a zone pregame.
“It’s funny, Dan remembered the game last year when I was with the Clippers, very similar, where we were down, went zone and won the game,” said Rivers. “And we talked about it before the game. He said, ‘I know it’s a different team, but that affected us in Indiana last year.’ He said, “If we get in trouble tonight, let’s get over there.” ”
While the Sixers’ success when Embiid plays is more important than their struggles for Sunday when he sat, the fact that they took a win without him and did so with a gritty comeback is an important step to build confidence.
“I think this was a big win for many reasons,” said Thybulle. “To come back, to win on the road, to win without Joel. I think a lot of those reasons come together to make it a big win. We all feel pretty good when we won it because we had a sense of how bad it would be if we lost. We can handle it and keep moving. “