The Sixers sputtered on offense against a tough Pistons group, falling 106-93 to Detroit for their first defeat of the season. Tyrese Maxey led Philadelphia in scoring with 29 points, but struggled along with his fellow co-stars for most of the first three quarters.
Here’s what I saw.
Subpar from the stars
The Sixers have taken the phrase “it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish” a bit too literally to start this year, opening two of their first four games with the energy of a tranquilized elephant. And you have to point the finger at two of their biggest stars in this one, because Philadelphia’s available stars were horrific on offense to start the game.
LeBron has added a ton of value to this team already. But his scoring has lagged behind his other contributions, and I think you can see his age showing the most when he tries to turn on the burners in the half-court. He is still as strong as an ox, able to shield players of all types from contesting him at the rim, but Detroit did a fairly good job of sliding along with him to prevent him from getting the initial angle. LeBron didn’t help himself at the line, either, missing three consecutive free throws to start the night.
It all began to open up in the closing minutes of the second quarter. LeBron scored two baskets in the final 30 seconds, both on strong moves to the basket. You don’t typically think of layups as the “remove the lid from the basket” shot, but he came out of halftime riding that momentum, crushing the Pistons as a roller and tossing in some tough paint finishes off the glass. Those makes energized him on the other end of the floor, too, with LeBron stripping Paul Reed underneath the basket before streaking down the floor and eventually finishing off the possession with another layup.
The bigger problem for the first three quarters was Maxey, who had big-time issues finishing inside the arc, but it was more disappointing when he couldn’t get there. The Pistons showed him multiple bodies on most ball screens and passed him off on switches as they usually do, successfully baiting him into stalling the offense. Maxey struggled to find a counter as they took away his ability to turn downhill, which has been a big problem for him against Detroit over the last couple of years. With Detroit driving him east and west and bleeding precious seconds of the shot clock, Maxey was forced into a lot of tough runners and floaters around the paint, and his percentages reflected that. Deeper in the game, he began settling for early-clock jumpers with a hand in his face, missing 19-foot jumpers without doing much to make Detroit work.
Maxey did save some of his best work for the fourth quarter, with Detroit wearing down a bit and his legs still surprisingly fresh at the tail end of a back-to-back. With LeBron and others creating the initial separation for him via screens, Maxey was able to get some clean looks, draw a foul or two, and slowly start building something. But no one was prepared to come along with him by the time it was time to close, and they couldn’t come up with enough stops to close the gap.
Jaylen Brown had an even rougher outing with no redemptive finish, and was not able to overcome Detroit’s physical perimeter defense with shotmaking from the midrange. Without Embiid to play off of as a counterpart in ball screens, it was just a lot of Brown crossing over in a stationary position and driving headfirst into immovable defenders, with the Pistons knocking the ball out of his hands frequently throughout the night. I will place part of their struggles on how the coach is setting them up — Philadelphia’s offensive structure has not impressed early in the season, with stretches of the game devolving into my-turn, your-turn basketball with little organization beyond that. Though they have the talent to succeed in that style and win in the sort of run-and-gun halves as we saw against Cleveland, there will be moments throughout the season where the coaching staff needs to save them from their worst habits. This felt like a prime example.
Also worth noting here: even with all his availability issues over the years, Joel Embiid remains a really important piece of this team. When teams show high against ball screens or freely switch across any matchup, Embiid is the equalizer, the guy who can either bury a smaller player from the mid-post or make the right read out of a four-on-three situation. Maxey was reluctant to trust Bona to attack four-on-threes, which I completely understand, but if that’s the case, the Sixers need to sit Bona in the dunker and use other guards and wings to screen for Maxey so that a trap isn’t an automatic possession stall-out. Regardless, Maxey, Brown, and LeBron have to produce better counters against this style of defense, which also didn’t have its best perimeter defender available.
In any case, the Sixers battled to keep this one close against a tough team while playing their third game in four nights. Frustrating night to be sure, but one they can learn from at the very least.
Bigs wanted
Down to Adem Bona as their only available big, the Sixers also drowned on the defensive glass, allowing 17 second-chance points off of 10 offensive rebounds in the first half alone. Turns out, there’s a material difference between playing LeBron at “center” with Embiid there as a roamer, and playing a LeBron/Wade frontcourt with no one around to do big man things. Paul Reed caused havoc before he got into foul trouble, and they didn’t handle lineups with John Collins at center much better.
For what it’s worth, Bona had been bad leading into Sunday’s game but responded well in the first half to Nurse going with anyone other than him to start. He got off to a flying start as a rebounder and helped spark a Sixers run after checking in for the first time. Even with his limitations, he is still a center who approaches things like screening, baseline cutting, and other basic basketball actions like a big man. There will always be value in that.
Unfortunately, he was still the same Bona who can’t be trusted to string together consecutive good decisions. The Sixers worked really hard to get a stop late in the third, only for Bona to almost literally hand the ball over to Detroit, gifting Jenkins a two-point jumper. Bona came within inches of four or five more rebounds, only for his hands to let him down at the summit, and his inability to end a possession ultimately led to Detroit’s dagger make in the closing minutes. His athleticism and activity were quite good, and he still managed to give back some of the generated goodwill.
It’s why I simply can’t see this team waiting all the way until the deadline without changing the complexion of their frontcourt. A flawed backup like Bona was still pretty helpful against a very good Pistons team. Maybe the eventual return of Dominick Barlow and a speedy recovery for Jabari Walker make a difference, but with confidence low in Bona and Embiid a constant threat to miss time, I don’t see how you can potentially go months without adding a big,
Other notes
— Although I generally like the offensive stylings of Anfernee Simons, I do think he is going to have to dial it back a little bit with his shot selection. There should be more than enough opportunities for him to get shots up, and I don’t think he has to resort to jacking pull-up threes with a hand in his face early in the shot clock, as we saw a couple of times on Sunday night. While he has overperformed in other areas, offering good passing and tenacious defense, they need him to be a source of steady bench offense more than anything else. Outside of the Knicks game, that hasn’t happened yet.
Nurse ultimately decided to give Philon a shot in important fourth-quarter minutes, sitting Simons down until KCP suffered a hand/wrist injury early in the fourth quarter. I thought Philon was a step slow on a few defensive rotations but otherwise was game.
— Kentavious Caldwell-Pope has been a real two-way spark for Philadelphia off the bench, so it was nice to see him return after going to the locker room with what looked like a painful hand or wrist injury.
