Sixers overcome Joel Embiid ejection to earn win over Spurs

A Joel Embiid ejection was not enough to spoil Philadelphia’s outing against the Spurs, with Tyrese Maxey dragging the Sixers to a 111-106 victory over San Antonio.

Here’s what I saw.

The Good

— Hey, in case you might have missed it in the middle of the ref show, the Sixers did indeed play a basketball game on Monday night. And they somehow won it in spite of, well, a lot of shenanigans. The faces of that victory, at least for me, were Tyrese Maxey and Guerschon Yabusele.

Maxey looked about a mile away from a good game to open this one up, with his shooting struggles continuing on a series of wide-open looks from deep. To try to counter those struggles, Maxey put on his hard hat and drove to the basket, and that appeared to be an even worse idea against the league’s most dominant shot blocker. Wembanyama spent most of the first half pasting Philadelphia’s shot attempts around the rim, including a couple from Maxey that had to feel like a fly getting swatted into paste on a warm summer window.

But as a couple of his teammates took their frustration out on the officials, Maxey remained calm and eventually settled into the game. And by settled into the game, I mean he started making threes and found some inner calmness. You’ve seen how it goes when Maxey starts getting threes to drop — defenses have to scramble to stop him, overpursuing on closeouts to the point that he gets loose inside the arc. And with Wembanyama lurking, Maxey did an awesome job of moving the ball away from pressure and finding his teammates in the flow of the offense.

We’ve had zero opportunities to say this all season, but the Sixers played some absolutely beautiful offensive basketball in the second half, following the example of their lead guard. In the opening minutes of the fourth quarter, the ball moved with pace and precision around the horn, forcing the Spurs to call an early timeout in the final period after a Guerschon Yabusele dunk and Caleb Martin three on back-to-back possessions. I would go so far as to say that those were “Spurs-like” possessions, invoking memories of some of the best Gregg Popovich teams over the years.

But Maxey’s biggest contribution to this win may have come at the defensive end, where he made a couple of monster plays down the stretch to earn Philadelphia extra possessions in a game that was separated by just a possession or two for basically five straight minutes. The best way to neutralize Wembanyama’s defensive impact is to ensure he can’t get back for the possession, and Maxey just dusted the Spurs in early offense time and time again in the closing moments, ripping and running for some huge buckets.

To cap it all off, he had the ball in his hands with 40 seconds left in the game, and the opportunity to try to create the last bit of separation the Sixers needed. All he did, naturally, was can a gorgeous stepback three with Jeremy Sochan draped all over him, sending the arena into hysterics on Festivus.

Incredible performance from No. 0.

— If anybody knows how to get to (and play around) Victor Wembanyama, it’s Yabusele, who has plenty of experience alongside the giant Frenchman on the national team. By playing Yabusele at center, the Sixers had to live with some issues around the rim. But they gained a ton from stretching the Spurs out, with Wembanyama not looking especially interested in running from the rim to the three-point line on every possession.

So Yabusele got to work, offering a strong source of secondary scoring for Philly off of the bench. When Wembanyama hovered near the paint, he bombed away from deep. When Wembanyama tried to come and play up higher, Yabusele did his best to get into Wemby’s chest and use the low center of gravity to drive him back.

The ability to use Yabusele as a frontcourt Swiss army knife should not be taken for granted, and they needed him to log a ton of second-half minutes and reps with Drummond and KJ Martin both ruled out due to injuries. Hell of a night.

— Caleb Martin has had a nightmare start to his Sixers tenure, and he sure picked a good night to finally start pulling out of the season-long slump he has been on from three. Maybe that layoff did him some good after all, because while the mechanics he uses still aren’t pretty, they’re at least starting to get consistent again.

Martin’s Sixers tenure is going to come down to one main thing — is he knocking down open corner threes? He offers enough defensive versatility that he should be able to play a real role for this team, but the shot has to be there.

The Bad

— Boy, those officials were really something, am I right?

The Ugly

— I have never seen anything like the officiating sequence we saw in the middle of Monday night’s second quarter. Andre Drummond and Victor Wembanyama were tussling before a Spurs inbounds pass from the baseline, and Drummond was called for a technical foul after Wembanyama fell to the floor like a giant sequioa. That one wasn’t popular with the home crowd, but it was at least in the realm of reasonable.

Moments later, Drummond was ejected, or so we thought, for a version of the exact same play. But a closer review from the officials determined that Drummond hadn’t done anything wrong, and in fact, Wembanyama had picked up an unsportsmanlike technical for flopping. So the Sixers stepped up to the line, made a free throw, and Andre Drummond returned to the floor to a hero’s welcome. He had been so convinced he was done for the night that cameras picked him up in the tunnel as he was in the process of putting his jersey back on, and frankly, I am not even sure if mechanically the officials are allowed to let him back in the game in the way that they did.

But wait, there’s more! After Drummond’s return, the officials held yet another conference and then announced to the crowd that Wembanyama’s flop — which they used a replay review to add to the game — was not going to be called either. They then took a point away from the Sixers by nullifying the technical free throw that had resulted from that call. And we were only getting started with referee shenanigans at this point.

(Oh by the way, Drummond would eventually exit the game anyway, with the big man picking up a left big toe contusion before being ruled out in the third quarter.)

— Joel Embiid was not exactly having his best night at the office 1.5 quarters into this one. He got off to a decent enough start, putting Wembanyama under pressure with physical play around the basket, but slowly tapered off as the Spurs trapped, doubled, and made him feel uncomfortable inside the arc. So frustration was building for Embiid as the game went off the rails following the Drummond officiating sequence.

When Embiid was called for his third foul on what I thought was a perfectly fine charge call in semi-transition, the big man went absolutely crazy, walking toward referee Jenna Schroeder at midcourt and screaming at her for what he apparently thought was a bad whistle. He was quickly whistled for a pair of technicals — we’ll be keeping an eye on the justification behind those after the game — and then really lost it, trying to wade through teammates, coaches, and security to chase down Schroeder and continue giving her a piece of his mind.

What isn’t clear on the TV angles that I’ve seen, that was clearer watching from the arena, is that the ejection comes for Embiid as he’s getting back to the bench and moving away from the official. That’s important context for multiple reasons, but mostly because it takes away the justification of throwing him out for safety reasons. The league will no doubt review from this sequence whether deliberate contact was made between Embiid and the official, which could lead to punishment beyond the game’s ejection and a potential fine.

Here’s where I fall on this: Embiid obviously shouldn’t be putting himself in a position where the official has an opportunity to eject him from a game for any reason, and his reaction was over the top for a block/charge call by any measure. But this was also poor game management from the official, who could have simply let him yell it out from the bench area after they’d parted ways.

By the letter of the law, I do not doubt there was justification to toss him for two different techs. But understanding the situation is a big part of the job, and after the brutal Drummond sequence with tempers running high, I would argue you need to offer some leeway here.

(That said, after getting suspended for jawing with a reporter earlier this season, I don’t think Embiid is going to get much benefit of the doubt on this one.)

— Let’s just add a stupid hanging-on-the-rim technical to the officiating disaster class, why not?

— We are at two full games played together for the Sixers’ big three. Christmas is on Wednesday. This is simply not a sustainable way to build the reps that are required to be a good playoff team, let alone a contender.

— Kyle Lowry trying to get a shot off with Victor Wembanyama in the vicinity looked like this:

Not sure there’s a bigger physical mismatch in the league at present.