Instant observations: Thunder dominate Sixers in second-half beatdown

A 23-point first half for Tyrese Maxey gave way to an absolute Thunder beatdown of the Sixers, with OKC running past Philly for a 129-104 victory.

You wouldn’t know it from the final score, but this was a competitive game for the first 2.5 quarters, with Philly walking step-for-step with the champs until the Thunder finally decided they’d had enough with the pesky 76ers.

Here’s what I saw.

A tale of two halves for Tyrese Maxey

Tyrese Maxey has been the biggest reason the Sixers are fighting to push up the Eastern Conference standings, and he deserves a good deal of grace for something as small as a two-game funk. That said, he knows as well as anyone how punishing the NBA can be when your top dog struggles. As the star goes, the team goes.

Against the league’s best defense and an absolute army of guard defenders, Maxey opened Sunday afternoon’s game with a howitzer, dropping 15 points on the Thunder in the opening 12 minutes to keep pace with the league’s top team. He was up to 23 by the time the first half ended, shooting 80 percent from the field while simply running past every defender they threw at him. Hell of a player, hell of a start.

While Maxey doesn’t get comparisons to Steph Curry very often, some of his best stretches on offense clearly borrow from the book of No. 30. Using VJ Edgecombe as the nominal point, Maxey’s perpetual motion and ability to mix speeds gave the Thunder fits, allowing him to catch a pass off a handoff or an Iverson cut with momentum already behind him. When Maxey is working off the ball, he is outstanding at sensing the space between him and his defender, lurching forward as the ball arrives to get inside the arc. But even as he penetrated through the initial level of defense easier than you might have expected, Maxey had a lot of work left to do at the rim. He put together an absolute finishing clinic in Sunday’s first half, tossing in a few miracles on the run to keep Philadelphia within striking distance.

The main problem for Maxey in the second half was keeping him involved enough to impact the game. The Thunder did a good job of switching and shading off-ball to prevent Maxey from getting the ball in the first place, and they made a conscious effort to make someone else beat them whenever possible. By showing Maxey two on-ball, the Thunder ended up on the winning side more often than not.

In related news, VJ Edgecombe’s total ineffectiveness as a scorer was a huge anchor on Philadelphia’s half-court offense. OKC’s coverage of Maxey fed him opportunities to get going as a pull-up shooter from multiple levels, and he put up a barrage of ugly misses from all over the floor. It was a shame, because I thought this was a great game of floor reads and passing for the rookie, but he gave himself almost no chance on roughly 2/3 of his shot attempts. He missed threes, runners, layups, and shots of every type you could imagine. I wish I felt better about Edgecombe’s inside-the-arc play in general, and this was a game where his lack of interior craft was particularly harmful.

Even when Maxey eventually found the ball, the Thunder simply turned the water off on him in the second half. His first make of the final 24 minutes didn’t come until almost halfway through the fourth quarter, and he needed a breakaway play on a steal to get that one. Credit to Maxey for his defensive effort in this one, too, with his four steals leading the way for Philly.

Adem Bona, trending up

An optimist would have pointed out pregame that Adem Bona is better built for this matchup than Andre Drummond. You have to clear a certain bar of athleticism to be able to run with the boys from OKC. But with the Thunder’s ability to put you in jeopardy with foul-drawing, Bona’s propensity to reach and swat at everything in his vicinity, you might have guessed he’d be in the express lane headed toward foul trouble.

Instead, Bona turned in perhaps his most complete game of the season. The shot blocking at the rim never comes as a surprise, but Bona was as poised as he has been on offense as a pro during his first-half minutes against the Thunder. Hit with repeated drop-off passes as VJ Edgecombe and Tyrese Maxey faced pressure on the perimeter, Bona made smart read after smart read, drawing fouls on dunk and layup attempts while making a few well-timed kickout passes to the perimeter, too. Even though he wasn’t especially quick to read the floor as a passer, you’ll take ball security from him any day of the week. And he punished the Thunder for fouling him — Bona was a perfect 4/4 from the free-throw line in the first half, doing his job after they dared him to make them pay at the stripe.

It was a particularly important performance with Andre Drummond playing loathsome basketball during his own shifts. Drummond had just a single rebound in the first half, completely unable to leverage his size and strength advantages against Chet Holmgren on either end. And it wasn’t for lack of trying, either, with Drummond attempting several wayward shots that Holmgren bothered or blocked entirely.

Bona has been unable to grab onto a consistent role the way many hoped heading into the season, but his year has been a story of inconsistency rather than total ineffectiveness. A game like this against the reigning champs lends some hope that he remains on an upward trend in the macro, even if it doesn’t feel like it during his lowest moments.

Justin Edwards gives, Justin Edwards takes

Quentin Grimes has been the face of role player struggles in Philadelphia recently, and for good reason. His shotmaking has been close to nonexistent, and his head-scratching decisions are a bit less tolerable when he isn’t burning the nets down. Grimes didn’t get off to a great start against the Thunder, putting himself on the bench with three first-half fouls, each a bit sillier than the last. When he committed a blatant reach-in to make Nick Nurse’s decision that much easier to sit him, Justin Edwards was called into action.

Perhaps Edwards deserves more of a timeshare with Grimes in the next week or two. The second-year wing came in and gave Philadelphia an immediate lift, knocking down all three of his threes in 10 first-half minutes, showing no fear of the league’s No. 1 defensive outfit. And Edwards managed to do more than just stand still and take open threes, navigating pressure well when the Thunder ran him off of the line. Ballhandling has been a sore spot for Edwards pretty much always, so it was a huge bonus that he was able to recycle a few possessions and keep the ball moving rather than dribbling into a brutal turnover and subsequent Thunder runout.

Unfortunately for Edwards, the second half happened. He was personally responsible for a strong Thunder close to the third quarter, committing a heinous turnover before an absolutely ridiculous final-second foul that gifted OKC free points that they simply did not need. His decision-making at the end of quarters has been horrific all season, and you were reminded why he finds himself on the fringes of their rotation.

Other notes

— Paul George had a very good game as a catch-and-shoot player and did almost nothing else on offense. The Thunder made him look very old when he tried to attack off the dribble.

— I understand why Nick Nurse has gone away from Jared McCain on a general level, because he hasn’t been very good all year, and this game featured some of his worst defense of the season. With that said, McCain finally got some threes to drop and teased you with the offensive upside that makes it hard to quit him as a future breakout candidate.

— SGA is outrageously good, and I reject the premise floated in some circles that he’s rough to watch. His scorer’s skill set is built around the midrange mastery that a lot of retro purists claim to miss.

The Thunder are also an incredibly impressive team, and I am much more inclined to credit them for a killer second half than fret about whatever it is the Sixers did or didn’t do.