Instant observations: Joel Embiid returns to Sixers' lineup for win vs. Hawks

A Joel Embiid return, a hot night for De’Anthony Melton, and Tyrese Maxey’s playmaking highlighted the Sixers’ 120-106 win over the Hawks to close the preseason. Philadelphia climbed out of a 17-point hole to put away Atlanta in the second half.

Here’s what I saw.

The Good

— The biggest question coming into this game was how the Sixers’ style would change once Joel Embiid joined the group. His slow and methodical approach on offense didn’t look like a fit with how Nick Nurse wants to play, and inquiring minds wanted to know who would bend more.

For the time being, it looks like Embiid is the guy making more changes. While he still received the ball around the elbows, there were very few possessions where he burned the shot clock down trying to find an opening. The Sixers ran quite a few dribble handoffs through him at the elbows, with Maxey flying around him in either direction and progressing through reads afterward.

It’s going to take some time for the team to strike a balance between taking advantage of Embiid’s gifts in isolation and trying to build an offense based on movement, sharing, and sacrifice. But if the star player is on board, that’s all that really matters for now.

— We have officially reached the point where Jaden Springer must be in the rotation on day one. There are a lot of vets on this team who would grumble more than Springer would by being demoted to start the season. But he has been one of the best stories of the preseason and has left a positive impact every time he hits the floor, and it’s time to see what the kid can do.

The early portion of the second quarter was as ugly as it gets for the Sixers, but the moment Jaden Springer hit the floor, things began to stabilize for Philadelphia. In fact, I would go so far as to say he was the most composed player on the court for most of that initial shift. He had a nice drop-off to a cutting Danuel House Jr. for a layup, a deflection that led to a steal on the defensive end, and a pair of spot-up threes to send it over the top. The first three he hit was reasonably difficult, too, a relocation three on the wing that Springer splashed as if it was no big deal.

I love everything I’ve seen from this kid in the preseason. Hope he gets a chance and gets it early.

— De’Anthony Melton had himself quite a week on the floor, and if Nick Nurse believes that the Sixers essentially have six starting-caliber guys, you’d have to put him in the top five even if James Harden comes back. He looks perfectly suited for Nick Nurse’s brand of basketball as a defender who will torture you in passing lanes and add a little bit of everything on offense.

Four days after he flirted with a triple-double in Brooklyn, Melton was burning the nets down at the Wells Fargo Center, punishing Atlanta for even thinking about leaving him open. And his hot night from the field started where he struggled for so much of last season — at the rim, where Melton finished a few transition layups as the Sixers got out and ran.

This is a big year for Melton on a personal level, as he’s the sort of role player who might still be able to command a decent payday in spite of the changes to the CBA. If Melton can replicate his shooting numbers from last season, improve his at-rim percentages, and continue causing chaos in passing lanes, he’s going to have a shot to get a bag next summer.

— Atlanta was up 17 points fairly early in the third quarter, and I would not have been shocked to see them completely lay down in a game that means absolutely nothing. But Embiid found his groove a bit, slowing the game down with some trips to the free-throw line, and Melton absolutely lost his mind from deep for a few minutes. Sprinkle in some Tobias Harris buckets and a few stops on the other end, and it was a game again rather quickly.

— A lot of the focus on Tyrese Maxey’s playmaking development has been on his reads out of pick-and-rolls. And those will certainly be important, now and for the rest of his career. But they aren’t the only chance Maxey will have to impact the game as a passer, as he showed on Friday night.

Maxey racked up assists against the Hawks, mostly by meeting Nurse’s call to play with pace. If there was a hit-ahead pass to make in transition, Maxey answered the call, and there was some nice combination play on the break with Melton. When the Sixers went to a double-big lineup using Embiid and Paul Reed together, Maxey made masterful use of Reed in the dunker spot, sucking in defenders before releasing it to the roaming big on the baseline.

While Maxey left some money on the table as a scorer — he was just 1/5 from deep on what I thought were pretty good looks — he hit a pair of stepback threes midway through the fourth quarter and you would have thought there was something real at stake from the way the crowd reacted. He can pull a crowd to its feet quicker than anybody else on the team, and man, I get it. There’s just something electric about watching him cook.

Even if he hadn’t gotten those shots to drop, he would have ended the night having made a positive impact on the game. And keep an eye on him on the defensive end, too. He has already had some T.J. McConnell-esque steals in the backcourt during the exhibition slate, and he seems to know that a step forward there is required for him to make the leap.

— Danny Green and P.J. Tucker looking sharp physically in the preseason doesn’t matter as much as how they hold up over the course of a long season, but it has been good to see them both flying around out there.

— Seeing Kelly Oubre unleash a primal scream because he forced his man to travel on the perimeter with five minutes left in a preseason game is extremely my shit. These guys have played hard for basically the whole preseason, and I love seeing that level of competitiveness before things even get started.

The Bad

— If you were hoping Embiid was going to jump into the team at the end of the preseason and look in full MVP form, you had to be mighty disappointed after this one. While he didn’t disrupt the style of play much, he looked like a guy who has only scrimmaged against teammates for the last month plus. And worse than that, I just don’t think he looks great physically, which doesn’t bode well for the start of the season.

Embiid has historically been a somewhat slow starter to open seasons, and he looks like a guy who could take a while to get going. Even factoring in the lack of motivation that was apparent to end the preseason, his burst wasn’t great and his lift was worse, with Embiid spending most of the game on or near the floor. His processing speed was fine on offense, but he labored on defense quite a bit, with the Trae Young/Clint Capela pick-and-roll causing him a lot of grief in the middle of the floor.

Again, it was his first game played of the preseason, so we don’t need to throw the whole season away because of this, and he did pick it up in the second half. But the leader of the team being this far off the pace is a concern, if a mild one, especially with their second-best player completely MIA.

— Nick Nurse was still looking at some guys who have been hurt to end the preseason, so I wouldn’t read too far into the rotations just yet. But I am interested to see what the rotations look like on opening night because the head coach went with the “stars and scrubs” approach in the first half against Atlanta, and that would be a recipe for disaster in the regular season.

To open the second quarter, the Sixers had a Beverley/Green/Korkmaz/Oubre/Reed lineup on the floor, and that combination of players fared about as well as you’d expect. While the Sixers are democratizing their approach to offense this season, it doesn’t mean you should put groups on the floor that lack a primary creator, as it leads to total anarchy for the group. It also highlights the worst traits in guys who have looked good in specialized roles — Patrick Beverley had to do far too much dribbling in that setup, Kelly Oubre had too much responsibility on his plate, and so on.

Having James Harden around to carry lineups like these was a huge positive for Philadelphia last season once Doc Rivers began to stagger his stars, and perhaps Nurse will have Maxey (or even Tobias Harris) leading those groups when the year begins. But keep an eye on this one, in the event that it’s not a first half in the preseason quirk.

The Ugly

— Seriously, another Sixers preseason game during a Phillies playoff game? You must be joking.