Another Joel Embiid injury mars Sixers loss vs. Pacers

Joel Embiid left the Sixers’ game against the Pacers after being hit in the face by Bennedict Mathurin, adding another piece of bad news to Philly’s 121-107 loss to Indiana.

Here’s what I saw.

The Good

— I admire the Sixers for trying to cobble something together in this game even as it looked like everything was working against them. Their offense was crap, their defense was crap, their best player was in the locker room and hurt again, but other than that, I suppose everything was fine.

What they did was try to hurt the Pacers in an area that has often killed Philadelphia: the glass. As the Sixers went on their third-quarter run that pulled them back into the game, the most common sight was a Sixers player (or even two Sixers players) flying toward the rim to try to create an extra shot opportunity. The key was persistence because not every second-chance possession was a pretty one. On one particularly memorable sequence, Ricky Council IV put up two or three half-shots, but the result was Kelly Oubre swooping in for a pair of points on the final Council miss. They ground Indiana down one rebound and one possession at a time, eating into an advantage the Pacers had created from the three-point line.

While we’re on the subject of Oubre, he continues to play some inspired basketball after an absolutely horrid start to the season. Philadelphia’s compete level on both ends of the floor has been far better in recent weeks, and Oubre has been an avatar for that change. He has put up double-digit rebounds in several recent games and has upped his production there while also regularly defending the other team’s top assignment.

The Bad

— On Sunday against the Bulls, the Sixers looked like a team with something resembling a coherent offensive plan. They got four off days that included two practice sessions and somehow returned to the floor looking like they’d never played together before. Not really sure how to explain what happened in the days in between.

After absolutely destroying the Bulls with Maxey/Embiid pick-and-rolls and consistent spacing around them, Nick Nurse tried to mix it up with other actions against Indiana, and the team came out with the offensive purpose of a CYO team. Embiid’s average pickup point was closer to the three-point line for a lot of the first half, more as a last resort than an early-clock attempt to get him the ball. And while there’s certainly good reason to work in other actions and other players on the ball, the Sixers hardly seemed to know what they were running half of the time.

The biggest victim of their shoddy offensive process appeared to be Paul George, who was a man lost at sea for much of this game. While Maxey and Embiid have a number of plays they can fall back on as a duo, the Sixers have yet to find basically anything to work with for the two veteran stars. So it often feels like the Sixers are playing my turn, your turn basketball when trying to run two-man actions involving Embiid and George, and that was painfully clear in the first half as George attempted just three shots. Even down the stretch with Embiid nowhere to be found, most of George’s offense came on clear-outs and isolation brilliance rather than sets designed to create space for him.

Indiana did give the Sixers a gift by continually doubling Embiid no matter who was the primary matchup on him. The most effective double teams against the big man come from teams that mix up where they’re coming from and mess with Embiid’s timing in the middle of the floor. Thankfully for Philadelphia, Indiana was consistent and slow with their doubles, waiting for a second dribble before sending help. That allowed Embiid to hit some very easy kick-out passes for Sixers threes, keeping the offense afloat for at least a little bit.

— The Pacers have been a brutal road team for most of this year, due in large part to Tyrese Haliburton’s complete inability to shoot away from his home gym. The Sixers managed to find a way to get him going, which is to say they spent much of the first quarter losing him entirely, allowing him to get into an early rhythm.

The Sixers would eventually get their act together on defense, leading to a sizable second-half stretch where Indiana’s best attempt at offense was simply jacking up threes without any semblance of dribble penetration. That coincided, naturally, with Nurse playing several athletes alongside a true big in Andre Drummond.

— If we were judging Tyrese Maxey strictly on his scoring on Friday, this was one of the better performances of his season. He got several threes to go down and, in a rare opportunity to face isolation defense, Maxey did a great job of using his speed to get all the way to the rim. It must feel like a big relief for him anytime he gets to face single coverage because he has spent most of this year getting doubled, trapped, and swarmed by opposing teams.

On the other hand, his passing was as bad in this game as it has been all season. He had five turnovers at halftime. I will give him a pass on one of those plays — Kelly Oubre left the corner for no reason on a semi-transition play, with Maxey passing to where Oubre should have been instead of where he ended up. Otherwise, he was giving the ball away for no real reason. There was a possession that featured Joel Embiid doubled off of the ball that still ended with a Maxey turnover, which should be borderline impossible.

The turnovers would stop after halftime, thankfully, and I would also say I don’t think it’s necessarily his job to “run the team” when it’s the Embiid show. But I am not living with a lack of ball security unless it comes with significant playmaking upside, and Maxey is not bringing that to the table.

The Ugly

— We got exactly 1.25 games of Joel Embiid and a (mostly) healthy Sixers team before everything went to hell again. So, for those of you who enjoyed that brief bit of hope, I am sorry that you allowed yourself to feel optimism again. Don’t let it happen again.

The critical play came right as the first half was coming to a close. Embiid was under the rim trying to find positioning for a defensive rebound when Indiana’s Bennedict Mathurin came flying in to try to make a play. As the younger Pacers swingman came through, he caught Embiid with a forearm to the right eye/cheek area, drawing an immediate reaction from the big man:

Everyone waited for a sign that he might be okay coming out of halftime, but that never came. The Sixers heightened the drama with a slow return to the floor — while Indiana had 9-10 guys out on the floor from around the 6:00 mark before the third onward, nobody on Philadelphia hit the floor until under three minutes were on the clock. Whether that’s because they had a particularly long halftime talk or because they were waiting to see what was going on with their leading man I cannot say, but it contributed to the state of unease before the team ruled him out shortly after the half.

It is far too early to know anything but given that Embiid has suffered multiple orbital injuries, the immediate and visceral reaction he had and the lingering he did on the baseline. This wording did not exactly ease the anxiety, either:

But above all else, I do not really see how this is sustainable for either Embiid or his teammates. For the big man, it often feels like the universe is conspiring against him, with these goofy, unexpected injuries sprinkled in between the maintenance periods and knee pain everyone has had to accept as reality. For his teammates, there is just no way to build any sort of rhythm and continuity when the most idiosyncratic piece of the team is coming and going with an ever-fluid timeline to return. It doesn’t matter how much they like him as a person or how good he is, frustration is going to eventually creep in and undermine their ability to win with in, if that hasn’t already set in.

The shame of it is that the Sixers have really started to unearth some important personnel wins over the last month or so. KJ Martin being a real player gives them a different dimension off of the bench, with his finishing and growing shooting ability added onto an appealing defensive package. Jared McCain has obviously been an impact rookie who gives them options in the backcourt, even during a down game like this one. Andre Drummond has also perked up lately, bringing the level of intensity on the boards I was hoping for when they signed him.

But those things are nice things to add to a star core, not things that can ultimately power the team somewhere meaningful on their own. I feel for the big guy on a personal level. Going through this injury process over and over again has to be more dispiriting than any of us can imagine. But as I keep writing repeatedly, it doesn’t have to be anybody’s fault for it to undermine the team.

— And oh yeah, make your damn free throws, fellas!