Instant observations: Sixers narrowly avoid collapse in win over Nets

The Sixers escaped with a FINAL SCORE victory over the visiting Nets in a tale of two halves, with Brooklyn briefly taking the lead in the fourth after a furious second-half comeback. Quentin Grimes led all scorers with 27 points, with Justin Edwards chipping in an ultra-efficient 19 points to help the 76ers avoid disaster.

Here’s what I saw.

A very good first half

Given the current state of the roster, the Sixers need to make no apologies for taking advantage of a tank-first outfit like the Brooklyn Nets. Two more names were added to Philadelphia’s injury list before Saturday’s game, with Andre Drummond and Jabari Walker both scratched in the two hours before the game. You will take wins however you can get them right now.

Philadelphia got this one by jumping on Brooklyn early and killing their spirit before the undermanned Nets could find any rhythm or confidence. The first possession of the game was a Nets turnover that turned into a Sixers break, with VJ Edgecombe soaring for the first of his two early fast-break dunks to open up the scoring. Philadelphia was almost constantly in transition thanks to 14 first-half turnovers from the visitors, and the one benefit of the current lineup is that they have a lot of young and willing-to-run athletes, from Edgecombe all the way down to guys like Dalen Terry in the two-way slots.

It was a good return to form for Edgecombe, who helped the Sixers build such a comfortable lead in the first quarter that they didn’t have to run his minutes up to run away with the game. Edgecombe toggled between the guard spots from possession to possession against Brooklyn, spraying out passes to shooters or otherwise hunting for his own out of pick-and-rolls. He had a beautiful turnaround jumper on the baseline and a nice stepback from the midrange around the free-throw line, and he managed to lead Philadelphia in first-half scoring (10) without contributing anything there in the second quarter.

Justin Edwards managed to turn in another stellar all-around game on the heels of a great night in Detroit, once again bringing his hard hat on the defensive end. The problems he has had on that end have rarely been about the physical tools, so seeing him engaged off-ball and disruptive with his hands has been super refreshing this week. He is big and athletic enough to defend big guards and smaller wings, and he has given himself a chance to make plays with better floor sense in recent games. Two steals and two blocks says a lot about poor Brooklyn decision-making, of course, but give me a version of Edwards that makes the extra rotation and finds himself in the right places, and I’ll live with ups and downs on offense.

Speaking of, Edwards’ three-ball was nowhere to be found on Saturday, with Edwards going 0/3 in the first half and never finding the range. But he was excellent as a downhill attacker and hit a beautiful spin move into a layup in the first half, ultimately going 4/4 inside the arc in those first-half minutes. He came out after halftime and picked up where he left off, knocking down a couple of midrange jumpers where he just bumped Nolan Traore off him to get clean looks at the rim. Every so often, you get the reminders that he was a prized recruit out of high school. I think the Sixers can and should be patient with him while he’s on his very cheap contract, as he wouldn’t be the first wing to need extended time to develop at this level.

That start to the game should have been enough for a comfortable, lighthearted victory to celebrate Franklin the Dog’s birthday. And yet!

Let’s try to ignore the second half

I had a general idea of how bad this Nets team would be with Saturday’s absences factored in, but I am not sure anything could have prepared me for what we were about to witness. A barrage of bricks, careless turnovers, poor transition defense, and no more than 2-3 moments where you had a thought like, “Wow, this looks like an NBA team!” But the crazy thing is, I think you could actually see the outline of a pretty good NBA offense, with decent off-ball movement and a prioritization of the “right” shots. It helps you understand how they’ve beaten teams like the Pistons when Michael Porter Jr. is available.

That’s why it didn’t feel terribly shocking that things flipped in the second half. The Sixers played an uninspired third quarter and allowed the Nets to creep one point closer, and the wheels totally fell off in the opening minutes of the fourth. In minutes without Edgecombe and Edwards to open the period, Cam Payne appeared to be on a personal mission to let the Nets back in the game, jacking up some horrid early clock threes that allowed the Nets to get on the break and score.

The three-point battle looked like a matchup of the stoppable force vs. the movable object early on, but the Nets would decisively win the battle on percentage and volume, with the Sixers largely abandoning the three-point line for most of this one. It’s easy to make excuses about how hard it is to generate them with the roster they have available, and then you look at the tanking team across from you, and that idea sort of melts away.

A couple of quick observations regarding the final 24 minutes:

• VJ Edgecombe simply has to improve the handle this summer. Not being perfect against traps is understandable, but I need him to be way stronger on-ball and through his core to absorb contact as a ballhandler. He gave away some pretty bad turnovers in the second half to contribute to Brooklyn’s big run.
• Praying that Quentin Grimes bails you out as a midrange jumpshooter is not really an offensive plan. He was the main guy for Philadelphia in crunch time and a lot of the second half, but I think that showed an absence of creativity more than a dominant Grimes display
• Getting split for an and-one layup for Ben Saraf in the final two minutes was particularly brutal. You know he doesn’t want to take threes, sit back, and wall off the rim!

In any case, they did just enough to avoid the entire thing unraveling.

An actual NBA center

One game without Adem Bona had me genuinely excited for his return, even if he is still a roller-coaster player at this stage of his career. The NBA may be positionless, but playing basketball without a center remains pretty difficult!

The clunkers have been few and far between for Bona coming out of the All-Star break, and he continued to show signs of growth against Brooklyn on Saturday. He finally appears to have found the right mix of shotblocking with around-the-rim discipline, showing a bit of discretion when he goes to challenge a driver that penetrates Philadelphia’s fairly flimsy point-of-attack defense. It might sound simple, but giving himself a chance to remain on the floor by avoiding fouls is a huge deal, because he certainly has the legs and the lungs to continue impacting games deep into the fourth.

There has been a lot of talk about progress on offense, from his hands to some one and two-dribble moves going downhill, but I am just as encouraged by the little details in Bona’s game. How long to hold a screen, how to seal a potential shot blocker to help your driving teammate, little decisions that put points on the board, or at the very least create better opportunities for your teammates. Of course, Bona committed a bad moving screen at the wrong time in the fourth quarter, so I suppose he lives to drive me nuts in some form or fashion, but the improvements are there overall.

Other notes

— The Sixers somehow losing the third quarter against this clown car of a basketball team would be genuinely unbelievable if I hadn’t watched the Sixers play the rest of their third quarters this year.

— I am begging VJ Edgecombe to make one of these poster dunk attempts, or to alter the attempts if he can’t. Watching Tyrese Maxey give him the Gladiator-esque thumbs down on the missed first-half attempt gave me a good laugh, and he was right to roast his rookie a little bit.

Also, Kate Scott declared that this was “an 8 on the style points,” and I am not sure I could disagree more. You don’t get an 8 in any department for missing the dunk! This logic is how Nate Robinson won a dunk contest after going through 3300 attempts, robbing Andre Iguodala of his rightful crown. Make the damn dunk, and then we can talk.