Paul George ruined Jaylen Brown’s proposed revenge game against the Celtics, scoring 36 points to lead all scorers in a 123-101 Boston defeat of the Sixers. Brown struggled mightily, scoring just 13 points on 4/9 from the field while suffering through foul trouble for most of the night.

Here’s what I saw.

Paul George gets the last laugh

As you might have expected, Jaylen Brown was a little too revved up in the first quarter of Tuesday’s game. In an overzealous attempt to go at Jayson Tatum on the first opportunity he had, Brown dribbled the ball off of his own foot and out of bounds, stumbling out of the gate while Tatum cruised to nine early points. He picked up a charge for his second foul and narrowly avoided getting whistled for a third in the first quarter after he hit Jordan Walsh with an off-arm on his way to a two-handed slam. The energy was there, but Brown needed to find a way to channel it.

The problem, dear reader, is that it never got better from there. Brown was limited by foul trouble for most of the night and completely out of rhythm the rest of the way. Any sort of revenge or statement game will have to wait, because he was flat-out bad. Too concerned with winning individual matchups and settling a score, not focused enough on being part of a team-focused effort to win it.

Philadelphia’s backcourt was very good in the first half, with Tyrese Maxey getting off to a fast start on offense by almost literally outrunning Boston’s defense. One thing that has resurfaced in the midst of the all stars lineup this year is Maxey’s devastating ability to catch the ball coming off an off-ball screen and immediately find his way to the rim. With LeBron, Edgecombe, or Brown running point, the Sixers had some success running Maxey around screens on the second-side against Boston, with No. 0 turning on the jets as the pass met him at the top of the key, leading to paint points and free throws.

VJ Edgecombe’s night was quieter on offense, but he was one of the few standout two-way players during a poor defensive start for the group. He pinned Jayson Tatum in the corner to force a turnover that drew an ovation from the home crowd, disrupted a few possessions at the point of attack, and at a minimum stayed in pursuit every possession, which is more than you could say about some of his teammates. He added a couple of stunning offensive highlights, including a spin move around Payton Pritchard and a putback slam as Joel Embiid crumpled to the ground late in the first half.

But defense was a big problem for this group, with the Sixers diced up by Boston for most of the first 24 minutes. Maxey’s off-ball attentiveness has been a problem over the last week, compounded on Tuesday by Brown seeing red every time Tatum was on the floor and Embiid’s selectiveness protecting the rim. They also struggled to contain dribble penetration, setting the Celtics up for a lot of two-on-ones in the paint that either ended with an easy look at the rim or a kick-out to an open shooter.

Their second-half comeback started when they finally began to muck Boston up on offense, due in part to Joel Embiid gutting it out on defense after rolling his ankle late in the second quarter. They mixed up their coverage on ball screens and showed Embiid high more often, grinding away precious seconds of the shot clock and denying the initial penetration that had powered the Celtics’ offense. And after stringing stops together, the Sixers got to work in early offense with cross matches and superior positioning compared to the first half.

And here’s where we get to the big guy. After a very strong start to the season as a two-way hub, it has been tough sledding for Joel Embiid over the last few games. His current lack of explosiveness shows itself all over the floor on offense. He lacks the speed to win in the face-up game, letting defenders crowd him and alter his midrange shots. He doesn’t have the same power (yet) in his current frame, which makes it harder to play a power game in the post. It’s easy to say that he should be able to shoot his way out of those problems, opening space for himself, but I think the problems are interconnected. It’s weird to hope that a lingering bout with plantar fasciitis is the culprit here, but as soon as he popped up on the injury report for the first time, these problems surfaced. And all of that was before Embiid rolled his ankle late in the first half, with physical concerns going from bad to worse in the blink of an eye.

To Embiid’s credit, none of that stopped him from battling. Nurse has consistently praised his approach to the game, and I think you saw why against Boston — he was able to will himself to the line for double-digit free throws through little more than running the floor hard and working to establish early position near the rim. Queta and Robinson hacked away, and when he had finally shown enough life as a scorer to draw help, Embiid made a couple of excellent passing decisions to set LeBron James up for layups. Embiid’s work as a screener was great, too, with the big man making repeated efforts to free up teammates along their comeback effort in the third quarter.

Unfortunately, the wheels came off as soon as the Sixers had to try a plan involving anyone who wasn’t Embiid at center. The Sixers have not figured out how to defend using any combination of LeBron/Wade/Walker as the nominal big, and as they tried to use ball pressure and cope with the lack of a rim protector on the back end, the Celtics just swung the ball around the perimeter and eventually punished wherever the overhelp was coming from. And it’s worth noting that their decisions in help generally weren’t good regardless of the lineup configuration, but KCP going to triple team someone to concede an open Pritchard three was the low moment of the night.

We should also give some credit where it’s due to Paul George, the forgotten man in this whole Sixers/Celtics drama vortex, who had an outstanding game attacking inside and out in a way that few wings not named Paul George can. He shot over Edgecombe in the mid-post, canned open threes all around the perimeter, and even put some nice drives on tape late in the game, pushing himself to the 30-point mark to outshine both of the younger star wings.

Debates about Philadelphia’s average margin of victory were already raging before this game, with the locals focused only on their record and dissenters wondering if it was an indicator that this team is not as good as this 9-3 start suggests they are. A performance like this will put wind in the sails of the latter group, and I would be lying if I told you I was unconcerned with their offense, which looks painful and unimaginative compared to the team that dismantled them on their home floor on Tuesday. Just one man’s opinion, but the “how” and “why” are at least as important to track as the record.

Other notes

— LeBron James remained upright at the end of the first half, but that was about all he managed to do well. His finishing issues at the rim are becoming a bigger and bigger problem as time wears on, and James managed to miss multiple point-blank layups in the first half, the first on the game’s opening shot attempt on a leak-out in transition. The Sixers don’t have any right to expect that a 41-year-old LeBron can be a consistent 20-point scorer as they navigate the 82-game marathon, but they are going to need him to start trending toward normal around the basket, where he has long been one of the best (if not the single best) finishers in the game.

— The Sixers may have to go away from Maxey/Simons lineups in bench minutes until or unless they can find a real backup center. Trying to defend and rebound when you’re working from a base of Maxey/Simons/Walker is borderline impossible against real teams, particularly against a team like the Celtics that is going to stretch you out and bomb away from three.

— This may be the game that finally cements Dean Wade as a player fans can get behind, as it’s a lot easier to appreciate his defensive exploits when he finds a way to impact the game on offense. There is no mistaking how hard Wade grinds on defense, as he showed while blanketing Jayson Tatum around off-ball screens and locking down Payton Pritchard on an isolation possession that earned a roar from the home crowd in the second half.