Sixers get punked on boards in brutal Game 4 loss to Knicks

The Sixers were beaten up by New York on the offensive glass on Sunday, losing 97-92 to the Knicks after getting punked on the boards for 12 straight minutes to end the game.

Here’s what I saw.

The Good

— After finding a lot of success running double-drag screens in Game 3, the Sixers immediately pulled out their own counters to open Game 4, anticipating how New York might overplay or switch to bog Philadelphia down. A hat tip to Nick Nurse and the coaching staff on that one — we often talk about the importance of adjustments in a seven-game series, but that tends to center around reactive adjustments rather than the proactive work we saw on Sunday afternoon.

It helps to have Joel Embiid on the floor and in the form he is in right now. Coming off of a 50-point game, it would have been hard for him to match his previous outing in raw production. But with the Knicks keying on his every move, Embiid was masterful in the first half, reading pressure defense as well as he has at any point in his career.

The Knicks were determined not to let him go off again, and the new Embiid doesn’t mind embracing his role as a playmaker. Embiid got the ball early in possessions and spent time surveying the floor, jab-stepping at his defender until he determined when and where the help was coming from. Philadelphia’s cutters had a field day in the first half, with Embiid throwing some darts through traffic for open layups. The Sixers even ran some designed looks meant to take advantage of his passing skills — they want back to a “Horns” set with Embiid at one elbow and a screener brushing off a forward on their way to the rim, with Embiid setting up Tobias Harris for a lob finish.

That’s about where the good times ended.

— Kelly Oubre has spent most off days in this series just sticking his finger in the eye of the Knicks in their fans. He hasn’t been half bad on the floor, either, with Oubre’s offensive contributions finally coming around to meet the defensive energy he has brought from minute one.

Is it just a classic example of role players excelling at home rather than on the road? Maybe, but Oubre is going to have some steam behind him as the series pivots back to New York City. He has finally found his shooting legs from deep after being strangely gunshy to open this series, with Oubre knocking down some massive momentum threes in Sunday’s afternoon affair.

The Oubre roller coaster was fierce at times this season, but one thing most of us agreed on all season long was that he wouldn’t show fear in these moments. Didn’t do much good in the end, of course…

The Bad

— The Sixers have had two main problems in this series against the Knicks:

• New York is a menacing offensive rebounding team
• New York has killed them in the minutes with Joel Embiid on the bench

We will get to the first problem in a moment. Unfortunately for them, they have not figured out a coherent plan for the second issue.

Through the series’ first three games, I didn’t think Paul Reed was the problem with those minutes, even if his individual play wasn’t perfect. He was far worse on Sunday, with the Knicks successfully baiting him into taking the lion’s share of shots during his first-half minutes. Reed has actually turned himself into a pretty good finisher around the rim, but his makes tend to come on simple finishes and the occasional reverse, not wild hook shots and attempts in traffic.

Even still, Reed feels like a symptom of the problem rather than the cause of it. For as good as Maxey has been while playing off of Embiid in this series, the Knicks have done an excellent job of walling him off and turning him into a side-to-side player without Embiid there to draw help and set screens. Maxey has had some help alongside him in the creation department, with Cam Payne and De’Anthony Melton providing secondary ballhandling in backup units, but their offense has been dismal whenever Embiid sits, leading to a lot of run outs for the visitors from New York.

It would certainly help if the Sixers could get any consistent production out of their bench pieces. Cam Payne was ineffective for most of Game 4, Nic Batum’s touch evaded him yet again, and De’Anthony Melton’s return was a whimper, not a bang. New York’s role players are wildly outplaying Philly’s, and even with Embiid trying to hold things together on both ends of the floor, it wasn’t enough.

— The inflection point of this game came with the Sixers up 10 and seemingly in control of the game in the third quarter. New York’s offense had stalled out, and OG Anunoby was basically the only guy providing consistent offensive help alongside Jalen Brunson. If Philadelphia had taken care of the basketball and run purposeful offense, there’s a non-zero chance they would have ran away with this game in the second half. Point a finger or two at the big man for Philadelphia’s failure to do so.

Embiid had three costly turnovers in the third quarter after excellent passing from the middle of the floor up to that point — he miscommunicated with Oubre on two separate cuts to the rim, and on a dribble handoff with Maxey on the left wing, Embiid expected a pivot back toward him that never came, throwing the pass to the sideline with Maxey nowhere to be found. The Knicks were able to cut into the lead slowly but surely, mostly thanks to one guy we’ll get to below.

As good as he has been on offense, Embiid’s defensive contributions have been just as (if not more) important. Rebounding has arguably been the swing factor in this series, and with Philadelphia racing out to an early lead, it was the big man who led the charge clearing the porch. Even when he wasn’t the guy bringing down a defensive rebound, Embiid was hitting his man and battling for position, freeing up their wings and guards to chase the basketball. His hands have also been a huge asset in this series — we’re used to Embiid making a difference at the rim with his wingspan, but he has continued to cause trouble in passing lanes by getting his hands on balls.

Heading into the fourth quarter, the Sixers were down a single point to New York, but it might as well have been 10, because the Knicks have absolutely pounded Philly in all of the non-Embiid minutes in this series. Realizing the desperate nature of the situation, Embiid remained in the game. And while that felt like a rational decision at the time, it came back to bite Philadelphia in the final minutes, with Embiid basically unable to move and no one else really worth a damn on offense.

Regardless of what Embiid is dealing with (which is to say quite a bit), he doesn’t get extra credit for simply being out there as the game slipped away. He gave everything he had, certainly, but if Embiid had more of a killer instinct during important moments in the first three quarters, they would not have had to run his tank to empty with 24 straight minutes of play.

— Show a great player one type of coverage long enough, and they’re going to figure out how to get rolling. Jalen Brunson is New York’s only consistent source of offense right now and has been good enough to wear that crown. The plans that worked so well in Games 1 and 2 have fallen apart against Brunson during the Philadelphia portion of the series.

The former Villanova star deserves plenty of credit for doing everything he can control without worrying about the Sixers’ defense. Brunson was a pull-up menace in Game 4, punishing Philly from mid-range as they tried to hang back and prevent open threes from going up. Brunson’s greatest strength is his body control, and he did an excellent job of using the Sixers’ tendencies against them — knowing they want to sit on the rearview contest, he has figured out the pace and timing to send Sixers defenders lurching past him, leading to clean-ish jumpers from some of his favorite spots on the floor.

Nick Nurse’s guys are certainly trying to mix it up against him. We didn’t see quite as much zone in this one, but they might have to toy with some more hard doubles and traps to force the ball out of Brunson’s hands if his current form continues.

— Tyrese Maxey going through some growing pains as a lead ballhandler is not a big shock, but it does hurt more for him to have a game like this after lighting it up to open this series. He looked well on his way to another strong outing on Sunday, only for him to go missing for nearly the entire second half.

There were two types of possessions in the fourth quarter:

• Plays where the Knicks sold out to stop Embiid and dared Maxey (or someone else) to beat them when it counted
• Plays where the exact same thing happened as described in point one, only for the Sixers to dump the ball in to Embiid in the post with the expectation that he would beat double coverage.

This was in spite of the fact that Embiid was sucking wind and unable to generate any kind of leverage. On an average night, you would have felt okay with Maxey starring as the lead scorer, or making the right decisions in four-on-three offense. But Maxey had a deer-in-the-headlights look, picking up his dribble in the wrong spots, either spooked by what he was seeing in traffic or unsure of whatever they were supposed to be running.

He is going to have to get in the lab and work on his counter-moves this summer, because when he can’t set up the opponent with fear of the stepback three, he runs into a good bit of trouble.

— The Sixers’ role players have stunk out loud. Not gonna win when that’s the case.

The Ugly

— The first half of this game featured some of Philadelphia’s best work on the defensive glass. The final quarter was an absolute disaster. I am not sure I have ever seen a worse rebounding quarter than that, and we sat through a Game 1 where the Knicks rebounded 50 percent of their misses in the halfcourt.

It’s the reason they lost this game. Big kudos to New York’s guys for their efforts on the glass, because Josh Hart has been an absolute machine with hustle plays in this series. Even still, the Sixers were fumbling balls that hit them directly in the hands, and their effort to get to the ball otherwise was abysmal.

— It’s hard for me to say what the exact split of Sixers fans vs. Knicks fans were in the building. It’s almost inarguable that the Knicks fans were louder than the Sixers fans, though, regardless of what the percentages were.

— This is an absolutely ridiculous way to draw free throws by Kyle Lowry:

But you almost have to respect the commitment to the grift. Few have put in more effort to sell calls than he has during his career.