Quentin Grimes’ career-high 44 points power Sixers to win over Warriors

Quentin Grimes poured in a career high 44 points to lead the Sixers to their first win in weeks, a 126-119 victory over Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors.

Here’s what I saw.

The Good

— If the Sixers attempt to tank and fail, it’s probably not going to be because Paul George or Tyrese Maxey went god mode for 20 straight games to carry them out of the basement. The Sixers would more than likely step in and shut them down if those two were actually going against the team’s desire to protect their pick. What would derail attempts to lose is an extended stretch of productive basketball from their role players, whether it’s guys playing for their next contract or guys playing with nothing to lose now that the pressure is off for this year. And you certainly can’t fault anyone for that and for playing hard, no matter what this season has been like.

The least maddening guy to watch go off for the pro-tankers has to be Quentin Grimes, who could be a key piece for Philadelphia’s future. Brought in to bring some athleticism and youth on a team that was crying out for it, Grimes has been up and down but has had real flashes playing off of Maxey in the backcourt. On paper, he’s an ideal fit next to Maxey and Jared McCain when both are healthy next season — a two-guard who can shoot, create off of the dribble, and take the toughest backcourt defensive assignment to move either guy to a less burdensome matchup.

Saturday night, he just got hot and stayed hot. Grimes’ confidence as a shooter can get him into trouble from time-to-time, but it allows him to turn two points into 10 and a small run into a big game in the right circumstances. The right circumstances, evidently, were a national TV game against Golden State. He hit the 30-point mark with 9:28 left in the third quarter. It’s hard to find something on offense that he didn’t do well, and Golden State mostly allowed it to happen, as they failed to respond to his game with any sort of aggressive coverages or changes in matchups.

Grimes had a wonderful, diverse shot diet against the Warriors, and it all started with the simple act of scoring in the paint. Great scorers will tell you it only takes seeing the ball go down once or twice to get rolling, and before the arena knew what had hit them, Grimes was canning pull-up threes to supplement the slashing game. While Tyrese Maxey was bad at a lot of things on Saturday night, one thing he did was look to feed the hot hand — Maxey kept searching for Grimes all over the floor as the game wore on, and the Sixers rode his hot streak into a double-digit lead that felt improbable given their recent form.

Picking up the easy ones in transition and odd-man breaks is a good way to stealthily pile up points, and Grimes did excellent work running the floor, too, handling the ball himself or leaking out for the hit-ahead. It certainly helps that he’s an excellent athlete — Grimes is more than capable of finishing over length at the rim, but his speed also means that he can force some early gambles on steals and blocks that he can Euro step around for two points. Over the long-term, the Sixers should be a dangerous transition team with the addition of maybe one more pair of young legs, and Grimes will be a big part of that.

It’s already the second 30+ point game of Grimes’ Sixers career, and no matter what the lineup looks like for Philly next season, he feels like a safe bet to be a contributor. This guy was splitting traps to get to the free-throw line in the second half, and carrying the offense as Maxey remained unable to hit anything in crunch time. You can bet his agent is going to have the highlights of this one ready when it’s time to negotiate in the summer.

— Kelly Oubre is one of the few guys from this team who can hold his head high for his effort over the full season. He has had lapses like everyone else, but there has been a relentlessness the rest of the team could have used during the worst months of this season.

It shouldn’t be this way, but Oubre tends to get more attention paid to his defensive effort and “little things” contributions when he shoots the ball well (as does every other role player in the league). It has been a rough season shooting the ball for Oubre, so it says a lot about his ability to slash that he is still able to cobble together an effective night without the jumper most of the time. He’s a handful to contain as a driver — Oubre might be thin compared to Draymond Green, but he blew the longtime defensive ace off of his spot on one first-half drive, depositing a short jumper after clearing Green out of the way.

— The Sixers got a good game out of Andre Drummond in limited minutes, months after most around here had written him off as a terrible signing. Perhaps, as Drummond alluded to after Friday’s practice, he is finally getting his mobility back after a toe issue plagued him for a good chunk of this year.

Drummond is a bad stylistic matchup against this Warriors group — Quinten Post is a stretch big that forces him out to the perimeter on defense — but he did a fairly good job of playing up to the level on ball screens, becoming part of their solution to slow down (not stop) Steph Curry. At the very least, he can get up close to you and show size, making it hard for Curry to hit the passes to cutters that he killed Philadelphia with for a lot of the game. Drummond’s offensive rebounding was also a weapon against a Warriors team lacking the bulk to slow him down, and though he’s still a worse free-throw shooter than you’d like, Drummond has been better than expected there recently, turning the typical wrap-up fouls into points on the board.

— Guerschon Yabusele was a difference-making player on offense for the Sixers, as he has been many times this season. If you bought his shot after a successful run shooting it in Europe, you came out a winner. And he emerged as the closing center, unsurprisingly, with the Warriors going smaller down the stretch. Good guy to have around.

— I don’t really understand why you would trade for Jared Butler and convert him to a standard NBA contract just to play Jeff Dowtin in the rotation over him, but Dowtin played well on Saturday night. He showed restraint with the ball in his hands, made a three, and was disciplined enough on defense to not mess up what they were running. Mission accomplished.

— Paul George showing up for two halves of a game on offense would be a nice thing to have at some point in the next three years. He was good in the second half, and about as ineffective as ineffective gets in the first 24 minutes of the game. Part Time P, or something.

— Give the Sixers some credit for deciding they were not just going to spend the rest of the season packing it in and losing by 20+ points every night. They’re playing with some spirit on defense over the last two games, which is more than you can say about the previous few weeks of action.

The Bad

— The Sixers have claimed Tyrese Maxey’s hand injury isn’t a serious one and that he more than likely won’t make it worse by continuing to play through it/with it. Are we sure about that? Are you watching this guy shoot the ball right now?

Maxey’s touch, which is outrageous when he’s feeling himself, has disappeared. He hasn’t completely shied away from outside shots and jumpers, but he appears to have no feel for the ball and has even discussed making some alterations to form to temporarily deal with the problem. No bueno. The results are bad, and I have no interest in watching him mess up an effective offensive game for the sake of chasing short-term results in a lost season.

Naturally, the Warriors weren’t going to let him have anything easy, either. Golden State did an effective job of getting him off the ball with well-timed traps and doubles, forcing other Sixers players to try to win one-on-one matchups. Grimes playing as well as he did made them second guess that tactic, but I didn’t think they needed to be overly aggressive shading toward Maxey in the first place. He was pretty visibly gunshy throughout this game, looking at the first sign of pressure and dumping the ball off to someone else.

There are times when Maxey looks at a poor game and says that the issue is “being aggressive” and it feels like a vague platitutde that doesn’t actually address what we saw on the floor. For once, I think that was one of his primary issues in this game. A few more moments of head down, find your way to the rim basketball might have done the trick.

The Ugly

— Is Quentin Grimes in on the tank with his missed free throws? Hard to say.

— I refuse to believe there has ever been a worse team defending immediately after a made basket than this year’s Sixers. Every team treats a Philadelphia make as an opportunity to run down the floor as fast as possible, creating layups and open jumpers far too often on those possessions. Run back, get matched up, and keep your head up. It shouldn’t be as hard as they make it look.

— Good god, this Warriors team stinks without Jimmy Butler. I know they’re missing Kuminga, too, but the Curry-less lineups felt like they had as much of a chance to score on the Sixers on a given possession as a CYO team would have.

That said, Curry remains one of the best in-person watches in the league even as he plays out the final years of his illustrious career. He bent the Sixers’ defense every time he was on the floor, hitting cutters and open shooters with laser precision when Philly overcommitted in his direction. Spectacular player, and just as fun to watch.

— I would sooner cut replay from the NBA entirely than continue on with the system the league has. Nothing says excitement like having extended breaks in crunch time while the officials stand in front of a monitor at halfcourt.