Sixers beat down Blazers behind season-high 37 points from Joel Embiid

Joel Embiid’s season-high of 37 points helped power the Sixers to a dominant 125-103 win over the Blazers on Monday, pushing their win streak to four games in their final game of 2024.

Here’s what I saw.

The Good

— After the first quarter of basketball, Joel Embiid’s stat profile was fine-ish but few would claim he was playing well. The Blazers were all over the offensive boards and he was struggling on the other end, running into traffic for some tough shots early on. Sprinkle in some ghastly turnovers, like his senseless outlet pass the Blazers hauled in, and this could have turned into a nightmare game.

Thankfully, it requires four quarters to get through a basketball game, and the big man found his footing in period two.

This was a game where the combined talent and synergy between Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey was enough to win the game, and those two picked the Blazers apart in any number of actions. Maxey was the danger man early on, working dribble handoffs with Embiid to step into wide-open jumpers, canning them after his partner created a ton of space for the look. The two of them make that play look easy, but it’s only because they’re remarkably skilled and have drilled thousands of reps of that look, working the play down to perfection.

Portland looked at Maxey’s start and thought they ought to send more bodies in his direction, which was a reasonable enough reaction. But that was to the benefit of Embiid, who started getting passes from Maxey on the short roll with space to operate in front of him. It’s why the strategies that work against solo star Maxey fall apart with Embiid out there — if you force the ball out of his hands with a soft double or hard hedge, a back-to-back scoring champion is going toward the rim with a red carpet rolled out.

The Sixers kept hammering a similar action in the second quarter. Maxey up top, Embiid coming to set a screen to move Maxey toward the left wing, and then a pass to the big man moving in from the three-point line. They got an open Yabusele three, a foul drawn by Embiid, and a rare dunk from the big man out of the same look, with the Blazers hopeless to stop them from scoring:

Embiid would score 14 of his 20 first-half points in the second quarter, in no small part because of this play. And as he built a rhythm, he started getting into his midrange bag, hitting some tough fadeaway jumpers that the Blazers couldn’t do much about. Portland played alright defense, but resistance can be futile when his touch is rolling from the mid-post and the elbows.

There are still some things he is working on as he adjusts to his new physical reality — more bigs are getting hands on his shots this season, for example. But he is slowly getting there with his footwork, the feinting, the up-fakes, and the “old man game” to work around it and produce big numbers as a scorer. Slowly but surely, he’s getting there. I suppose it helps when you can just hit Dirk-ish jumpers when the explosiveness isn’t there.

— To circle back on Maxey very quickly, this was a backseat game for him but a very good one in my view. I want him to be the aggressive version of himself, but the smart one, and he did a good job of moving the ball away from pressure even if it didn’t ultimately lead to padding his assist totals. He got his early and then largely managed the game, and that’s what the job of a point guard often looks like. The box score will not properly show his impact.

I thought it was fitting that the three he hit to end a beautiful fourth-quarter possession to push the lead to 20+ started with his own cross-court pass to the opposite corner. He trusted his read, made the pass, and ball movement brought it back to him for a wide-open look. That’s what basketball is all about.

— Guerschon Yabusele entered Olympic play this summer expecting to return to Real Madrid, where he’d carved out a great overseas career over the previous half-decade. Four months later, he has already turned himself into a bit of a Philadelphia folk hero as a role player, providing a combination of production and joy that has kept hope alive during a dark season.

Let’s not waste more time than we need to. Yabusele produced one of the dunks of the season in the second quarter, taking a transition outlet and punching it on poor Deni Avdija:

It is sort of weird watching Yabusele in that there are times when he looks more like a ground-bound guy, limiting his impact on defense, and then he pulls a highlight like this out of the bag and you nearly fall out of your chair in amazement. With a runway, he is a dangerous man, and he proved that here.

That play brought the whole team to life. Kyle Lowry drew a technical foul for his overzealous reaction following the dunk, and the whole team played with that sort of enthusiasm from that point onward. That has been a big piece of Yabusele’s value as an emotional leader, and he continued that play with dives to the floor for loose balls and inspired defense at the rim. And oh yeah, he is shooting well and offering secondary playmaking. What a guy.

A lot of Sixers fans are beginning to worry that they’ll have no chance to keep him in free agency because of salary cap restrictions, but I would reframe that to say that this is the sort of program you want to have for role players, one where guys can come in at a career crossroads and make a real name for themselves. That might not allow them to keep Yabusele, but it will be a big piece of the pitch to future free agents, who can see exactly what they can gain from taking a chance on signing in Philly.

— Kelly Oubre had six steals in a single half of basketball. That is tied for the most steals he has ever had in a single game. After an outing in Utah that ranked among his worst of the last month, Oubre came back and played as though he had jet-powered shoes on.

Oubre’s defensive exploits this season are more impressive when you consider that he, and not Paul George, has frequently been the guy taking the other team’s top assignment. While doing the hard work of tailing a No. 1 option, he has still managed to be a disruptor away from the play, juggling the responsibilities beautifully. He is a huge reason the Sixers have been a good defensive unit despite absences and constant lineup juggling, and Portland’s grotesque turnover numbers were the payoff for some outstanding Oubre work.

And hey, a good and efficient night for him on offense, too! Oubre did damage cutting off-ball but was left with plenty of work to do around the paint, and he got creative with his finishes, spinning and dipping into space before depositing two-point buckets at the cup.

— Pete Nance garbage time threes, this game had everything. Seriously though, cool moment for the kid!

The Bad

— You could certainly argue that Paul George was done no favors by the officials working Monday night’s game. The foul he picked up on a moving screen was soft, and the third foul to end his first half was not much better, with George keeping his arms back as a Blazers player fell to the floor after minimal contact. But those excuses fell apart after halftime when he had a chance to regroup, reset, and get back to it against a reeling Blazers team.

George was completely off of the pace in this one. It has been one thing to excuse poor shotmaking and bad offensive process when he has been playing lights-out defense, but he had no feel for the game on that end and very little interest in making an impact there. Several different Blazers players made light work of him: Shaedon Sharpe absolutely cooked him with a move on the baseline, Toumani Camara made his effort on the glass look embarrassing, and so on down the line.

(His one “defensive highlight” of the night came on a play where the officials gave him his fifth foul. Great effort and a good contest coming in from the weak side, and it still wasn’t good enough. Brutal.)

Hey, at least he hit a three in garbage time!

The Ugly

— Chauncey Billups challenging a call 36 seconds into the game has to be some sort of record. It’s also completely insane, what are you doing?! Congrats on the challenge win with no impact on the game, I guess.

— Portland missing the technical free throw given to Lowry celebrating Yabu’s dunk was the greatest Ball Don’t Lie justice in recent memory.

— I cannot take watching Embiid initiate offense from 70+ feet away anymore. They are already a slow team, I would rather they play a tad bit slower and have someone wait and take the ball out of his hands. His attempts to get involved in the transition attack can’t be a net positive, I refuse to believe it. The turnover he committed when he rifled a pass into Maxey’s chest from a foot away nearly caused me to cease writing this recap entirely.