Nobody is going to throw a victory tour for winning a game against the Charlotte Hornets in the middle of December, especially when the Hornets were playing without their two stars LaMelo Ball and Brandon Miller, as they were in Philadelphia on Friday night.

Still, it wasn’t that long ago that the Sixers were 3-14 on the season. So I’m not going to complain about any wins at this stage.

Joel Embiid led the way with a dominant 34-point, 9-assist performance. Tyrese Maxey added 23 and 6 on 9-18 shooting, including 4-11 from deep, and Kelly Oubre Jr added 22 points on an extremely efficient 8-10 shooting. Paul George finished the night with 10 rebounds and 8 assists as he handled a lot of the shot-creation duties.

Here’s what I saw in the Sixers’ 108-98 win over the Hornets, their 6th win in the last 8 games.

The Likes

Even though Joel Embiid only missed one game as a result of his right sinus fracture, the Sixers’ star center has still played just one game in the last 12 days, with the Sixers caught in the middle of an NBA Cup induced lull in the schedule. Typically in the past, when Embiid comes back from these extended layoffs you tend to see a lot of sloppiness to his game, with one of the league’s true rhythm players trying to get his groove back in real time.

That wasn’t the case on Friday night, as Embiid came out with 8 points, on six shots, in just under eight minutes of play during his first quarter stint. He also showed a little bit more effort to get shots at the rim than he typically does when coming back from layoffs, using two-man games with Tyrese Maxey and Paul George to get position in the paint, making less of his early returns dependent on the midrange Js that he can settle for when working his way back into basketball shape.

Perhaps the most impressive stretch of the early part of the game from Embiid had nothing to do with scoring. Late in the 2nd quarter the Hornets had cut the Sixers’ once 20-point lead all the way down to 9 with 3:45 left in the half. Embiid responded with a couple of calm, patient dimes to Kelly Oubre Jr on back-to-back possession. On the frist, Embiid read the double team and found Oubre cutting in from the slot for an easy layup. The next trip down the floor Embiid started dribbling to his right, waiting just long enough for Cody Martin, worried about Embiid’s drive, to help off of Oubre in the corner. Embiid rifled a pass to Oubre, who sank the 3. Controlling the game, and manipulating the defense, to that degree are often things that slack when Embiid gets tired and loses focus, and he seemed locked in despite his recent layoff.

As the second half rolled around, Embiid started to find his groove as a scorer, with Embiid scoring 24 points after intermission. Embiid got to his spots in the midrange, with Maxey and Embiid working in a few pocket passes at the nail on a play they can spam over-and-over-and-over when they’re in a scoring drought, and Embiid was able to bully his way inside against an overmatched Charlotte defense. Eventually, Embiid was pump-faking from the 3-point line to Eurostep his way to a layup at the rim, looking like the kind of unicorn big man we have come to take for granted over the last few years. While the concerns of his injury and his durability will remain, Embiid has played good, consistent basketball in his last few appearances — when he’s been available.

One of the key hypothesis of last season was how much better Kelly Oubre Jr plays next to Joel Embiid. Oubre, specifically, shot the ball significantly better when Embiid was on the court last season, albeit on a very limited sample size. That trend has continued this year. Heading into tonight’s game Oubre was sporting a 64.6% true shooting percentage in his (once again limited) minutes alongside of Embiid. The sample on all of these will still require asterisks, especially with potentially volatile 3-point percentages for a player who has been inconsistent (at best) from deep for the entirety of his NBA career. But if Oubre continues to cut hard to the basket off ball, and continues to take only good, in rhythm, catch-and-shoot off-ball 3s, the two of them clearly have some chemistry between them.

Oubre, for his part, has been shooting the absolute heck out of the ball for a little while now, as Oubre had made 14 of his previous 30 attempts from deep, and that continued Friday night, with Oubre connecting on four of his six 3-point attempts. Obviously, the ball going in the basket will always make the process look better, but subjectively it seems that Oubre’s shot selection has been markedly improved over the last few weeks. Gone are the days of 17-foot, pull-up jumpers with 16 seconds left on the shot clock that almost always turned into transition buckets the other way. Oubre, of late, has been playing some of the most well-rounded basketball of his brief Sixers career.

There is a legitimate argument that the Sixers should continue to run more and more of their half-court offense through Paul George. That’s a two-pronged statement. First, it can help get Tyrese Maxey back on track by generating the kind of high-value catch-and-shoot jumpers that Maxey feasted on earlier in his career when playing alongside of James Harden. But it’s also because George has shown some real playmaking chops, using his combination of 6-foot-8 size, the threat of his shot, and patience to force rotations and make the right reads out of them.

In particular, George has shown some real chemistry with virtually all of the Sixers’ bigs, finding them for easy buckets coming off of dribble handoffs and pick-and-rolls, and he connected on one with Embiid early on to help get the big man rolling. He also had a nice drive and kick to Kelly Oubre Jr for a corner 3, and hit Maxey for an easy catch-and-shoot 3 above break after Charlotte repeatedly sent soft double teams his way. George may not be a prototypical “point guard” in any real sense, but given how comfortable Maxey is operating as an off-ball player, the Sixers should continue giving George ample opportunities to initiate in the half-court.

Speaking George, his commitment to crashing the glass has been evident of late, with George skying up to grab some tough, contested rebounds tonight against the Hornets. The combination of all of this — on-ball creation, off-ball shooting, defensive playmaking and being a piece of the puzzle as the Sixers look to solve their longstanding problems on the glass — are why most thought his skill set fit almost perfectly as a 3rd option alongside of Embiid and Maxey. Paul George only scored 5 points on the night, but I thought he played an excellent overall game in spite of that, which really just shows how many different ways the 9-time All-Star can impact the game. The qualifications of if Embiid and George can stay healthy are obviously still valid, but the theory of George as a good fit is still there.

Tyrese Maxey didn’t play a perfect game — he barely looked to drive in the first half, and he went without an assist in the first 2+ quarters as he ceded much of the creation duties to Embiid and George in the half-court. But considering that Maxey was shooting under 30% from 3-point range as recently as two weeks ago, any night where Maxey has it going on from the perimeter is a good night in my book, as the threat of Maxey’s shot, combined with his blazing speed, is what makes him so incredibly dangerous. And Tyrese Maxey was hunting 3s for most of that first half, putting all kinds of pressure on Charlotte’s defense and opening things up for Embiid and George to pick apart any errant Charlotte rotations.

Ricky Council gave the Sixers good minutes off the bench, making his only 3-point attempt (a corner 3), hustling on defense, and busting his rear end running the floor in transition. Council is a bit of a chaos agent on both ends, and for both teams, but he’s been coming out on the positive end of the ledger way more frequently over the last few weeks than he was to start the season. With so much uncertainty over Caleb Martin, that’s a good thing.

Nick Nurse won a challenge. Yes, you read that right. Nurse came into the game successful on just 40.9% of his challenge attempts this season, well below the league average of 57.5%. It was a very obvious charge (that was called a block on George), but given how bad Nurse and his crew have been on challenges so far this season, even making the right call on an obvious one is reason for celebration.

GUERSCHON YABUSELE DUNKING OVER DUDES IN TRANSITION IS FUN.

The Dislikes

As much praise as I heaped upon Paul George in the segment above, much of it raving about his methodical (but effective) half-court playmaking, he still makes one or two WTF passes each game. The one today came on a cross-court pass out of a postup midway through the second quarter that had precisely 0% chance of getting through. It’s not something to make too big of a deal about, in large part because his floor game has been so consistently solid over the last few weeks, but he just has that one moment per game that leaves you scratching your head.

While I was really impressed with how Embiid controlled the game offensively, especially given how infrequently he has played over the last two weeks, I didn’t think he looked all that great with his lateral mobility in this one. Two plays that stood out was when he offered little resistance to Nick Richards, who blew by him for an easy dunk early in the game, and then pick-and-roll with Micic and Diabate midway through the 4th where Embiid looked really flat-footed. Overall, I think Embiid has looked better than expected in terms of his lateral mobility while dealing with the knee issues, so I’m hoping this was just a one-off bad night.

The Sixers came out in the 3rd quarter and looked strong from the jump, pushing their lead back out to 20 as Embiid and George continued to dissect Charlotte’s half-court defense with methodical post-ups and timely passes. But Charlotte was able to keep the game (somewhat) close midway through the third thanks to some uninspired perimeter defense from the Sixers, specifically as they repeatedly got lost navigating screens beyond the arc. If there was one nitpick I would have in Kelly Oubre Jr’s otherwise excellent game tonight, this would be it, as Oubre got caught blindsided on a few screens, leading to some makes from Vasilije Micic.

Kyle Lowry picked up three personal fouls in six minutes of play in the first half. One foul came as he tried to push his way through a screen on the perimeter, something he’s done relatively frequently here early in the season as he struggles to have the foot speed to chase on the perimeter. The final foul came while hitting Miles Bridges on a 3-pointer, the start of a 7-0 run by the Hornets that helped them briefly claw back from a 20-point deficit to make things a little bit interesting.

Jared McCain’s surgery to repair his torn meniscus means the Sixers are out one of their primary guard options for the foreseeable future, a problem compounded by Caleb Martin being out with a right shoulder impingement, forcing Kelly Oubre Jr to get more of his minutes in the front court and opening up a spot in the rotation for another ball-handling guard. But that spot can’t go to Lowry. Heading into the game the 38-year-old was averaging 1.8 points in 18.1 minutes per game since November 12th, shooting 16.7% from the field and 6.3% from 3-point range, and as his mobility decreases he seems to be trying to compensate by playing extra aggressively on the perimeter, leading to very non-veteran-like mistakes that are unacceptable for a player giving them so little production.

(For those wondering, the 4.7 points per 100 possessions that Lowry is averaging since November 12th is the 2nd fewest points-per-possession of anyone in the NBA over that span.)

The Sixers tried to buy a few minutes at the start of the 4th with Embiid and Maxey on the bench, and it, surprisingly, did not go well. Charlotte sprinted out to a 12-4 run to start the 4th quarter to cut the lead back down to 6, with the Sixers’ ineffectiveness on offense leading to Charlotte to attack against an unset defense on the other end of the court. Micic, once again, was dicing the Sixers up on the perimeter, with an impressive display of shot making that the Sixers were not prepared for, or communicating well enough, to stop. Overall, I thought the Sixers’ defense in the second half left a lot to be desired.