Instant observations: Sixers' comeback bid falls short vs. Bulls

Joel Embiid put together another 40-point game for the Sixers, but the big man missed an opportunity to tie it late as the Bulls emerged with a 108-104 victory in Philadelphia.

Here’s what I saw.

The Good

— Joel Embiid has been on an incredible run these last few weeks, but beating up lesser competition has brought plenty of naysayers out of the woodwork, too. The suggestion is that he was padding his stats against crappy teams as if no other star in history has played a bad team before.

Against a better Bulls team, Embiid was as clinical as he was over the past week against the Pistons and Wizards. Matched up with former Sixers center Nic Vucevic, Embiid hit him with the same bag of tricks that has decimated most players he has been up against this season. When free-throw line jumpers are basically a layup, it becomes very hard to stop a seven-foot center, because the second you sell out to stop the jumper, he’s going by you for points or free throws.

This was a game all about his midrange mastery. While he has played with good tempo under Nick Nurse’s guidance this year, this harkened back to his time under Doc Rivers. There were jab steps galore, Embiid rocking Vucevic back and forth until he found precious inches of separation, using it to either rise up for the jumper or go by the slower man for a trip to the basket. Anecdotally, it feels like we haven’t gotten a ton of powerful Embiid dunks this year, but he uncorked one in the third quarter that brought the crowd to their feet.

Putting together another one of these nights with everyone around him struggling was some feat because the Bulls could have thrown the kitchen sink at him on every possession without suffering much. Vucevic played with unsure footing all night, even with the coaching staff likely telling him they’d live with Embiid threes if it came down to it. I suppose it’s hard to stare down the guy hitting jumper after jumper and think he’s going to miss jumpers from any area of the floor.

(And yet, we’ll get to the final miss elsewhere…)

— This game featured some of the best, most active defense we’ve seen from De’Anthony Melton and Robert Covington all year. The Sixers had one of those guys on the floor at almost all times, and it felt like if either guy was within striking distance of the ball, there was a good chance they were going to force a turnover.

Restraint is not exactly Melton’s thing on either side of the ball, but save for a wild journey to the rim in the first half, he did a great job of finding the middle ground of aggression, causing chaos with abandoning assignments or throwing up too much junk on offense. Covington’s contributions came mostly through his quick hands, with the Sixers’ veteran forward inches away from another steal or two that might have flipped the game.

(Let’s not talk about Covington’s heinous missed layup in the third quarter. He has improved as an attacker and finisher since his early Sixers days, but yeesh, that was a rough one.)

The Bad

— The Sixers were not going to have the good fortune of playing all-time bad teams for the rest of the season. A snap back to reality was necessary, with the Bulls representing a good step up in competition before a really compelling matchup with Minnesota on Wednesday.

But outside of Embiid, this group did not look prepared for a “real” team. And yes, the Bulls are that, with Chicago playing good basketball since Zach LaVine left the lineup. The surprise came in how they struggled because Philadelphia’s much-ballyhooed offense was a trainwreck for long portions of this game. That has been the side of the ball we can count on, and the Sixers were piss-poor there.

Tyrese Maxey missing some open looks from three didn’t help, but the Bulls also did a nice job of limiting him from doing damage as a downhill attacker. Alex Caruso is a high-level defender at the point of attack, and the game felt like it changed the second he came in off of the bench, forcing Maxey to move east-west more often in the halfcourt. That left Embiid to do a lot of heavy lifting in the middle of the floor — either he was hitting midrange jumpers or they were basically going nowhere.

Ball security, which has been a strength for Maxey all season, was a problem throughout Monday’s game. He had turnovers in the final seconds of both the first and third quarters, and while the Sixers were fortunate to avoid punishment in the first, Chicago came down and canned a three to close out the third quarter, punishing Maxey for an errant pass thrown behind Joel Embiid.

The Bulls did well to pick on Maxey on the other end, too, where he kept ending up on bigger, more athletic players on switches. While the Sixers will live with Patrick Williams trying to attack him, DeMar DeRozan is a completely different beast. For a few minutes toward the end of the second quarter, DeRozan drew Maxey and just kept shooting midrange jumpers over him, building a head of steam that he carried into halftime.

There were certainly some bright moments here for young Maxey, who hit big shots early in the fourth quarter to briefly pull the Sixers in front of Chicago. He sunk another huge one late, bringing his total up to 29 points and the Sixers to within striking distance of a win. But it wasn’t enough to make up for the missed shots, the turnovers, and the putrid defense.

— As strong as he started this game on defense, I thought Joel Embiid took his foot off of the gas on that end, and the Sixers paid for it throughout the second half. Defending stretch bigs is a difficult task for Embiid, whose primary defensive value comes from his rim defense, so I sympathize with his plight. But as this game wore on, he gave Vucevic more and more space to work with, and after a fairly sleepy start to the game, his counterpart woke up. Vucevic hit some key buckets in the second half to hold the Sixers off, and on a few, nothing more than a token effort would have gotten the job done.

And let’s be honest — that final attempt he got up to try to tie the game was, well, nowhere close to going in. If we’re going to give him credit for carrying the offense for most of the game, you certainly have to ding him for faltering on the biggest shot in the final minute. Heavy is the head that wears the crown.

— This game should have served as a platform for Tobias Harris to show his value as a No. 3 option. The Bulls committed a lot of resources to stopping Maxey, and the usual series of double-teams came for the big man in the middle of the floor. Harris had space to operate, and the team had an urgent need for secondary scoring.

And he just sort of…did nothing. When Harris is loud and bad, it tends to stand out more, but these are the outings that drive me much more insane. At halftime, Harris had attempted just two shots, coughed up a horrible turnover, and otherwise was nowhere to be seen. After missing his initial attempt over Patrick Williams in the mid-post, he was nowhere to be found for most of two quarters.

Maybe you give some credit to the Bulls for effectively isolating Embiid in the middle of the floor, mixing in double teams from time to time but mostly just crowding him and making his passing angles difficult. But I think that lets Harris off of the hook for just floating through this game without a plan or a purpose, and he has fallen a long way from his excellent start to the season.

(Where I will give him some credit is the defensive end, where he ended up on Nic Vucevic on switches quite a few times. Harris performed admirably in that matchup, stripping Vucevic on his way up on a couple of occasions, preventing the seven-footer from bullying through him at the rim.)

— Kelly Oubre has been an impactful spark plug for the Sixers whenever he has been available, and on Monday night, he had what I think is his first true stinker for Philadelphia. His touch from deep was non-existent, he derailed the offense with some forced-up shots from midrange, and he never really found his place in this game. Nick Nurse continued to roll with him deep into this game, and I’m not sure I understand why.

(Update: Nic Batum had hamstring tightness, so that’s why.)

Living with missed shots is one thing, but skepticism around Oubre coming into this year was all about his history of going off-script. Given how many strong outings he has turned in this year, there’s no need to throw out that body of work over one game, but something to keep an eye on.

The Ugly

— Dare I say the Sixers may have missed Marcus Morris a little bit? They certainly missed the insane shooting he has offered in recent weeks, with the bench giving them close to nothing from deep.

I thought Tobias Harris had tough luck on the foul call that gave DeMar DeRozan two critical free throws in the final minute.