Instant observations: Cavs beat up Sixers on second night of back-to-back

The Sixers simply didn’t have enough to keep up with the Cavs on night two of their back-to-back, losing 132-121 after Cleveland pulled away from them in the third quarter. Andre Drummond and Trendon Watford turned in nice games for the 76ers off the bench.

Here’s what I saw.

Back-to-backs are (mostly) a waste of time

I have reached the point where I generally accept that most back-to-backs are an automatic loss, no matter who you’re facing and who is available to play. There is plenty of data to suggest that you are dooming the team on a rest disadvantage to defeat, as mad as the idea of a “scheduled loss” made people when Doc Rivers said it years ago.

Fatigue was all over the Sixers’ faces and body language to open the game. Something as simple as getting the first pass in to start an offensive possession was a total adventure, with Tyrese Maxey throwing the ball away on Philadelphia’s first offensive possession. More than usual, Maxey showed visible frustration at the team’s slow start, even standing flat-footed after one of his turnovers led to a Cavs fast break. Their collective carelessness helped Cleveland get clean looks in transition offense, leading to a strong start from beyond, where they’ve struggled for most of the season to date. It looked like the recipe for an ass kicking

These are nights when you go back to principles as “Who has the energy to run?” Anyone who didn’t play in Philadelphia’s loss to the Bulls a night prior was needed in a big way, and the guys who were spared from 35+ minute workloads had to step up to cover for their stars, who took a while to get going.

Andre Drummond was one of the few guys who looked up to the task of competing with Cleveland’s lengthy frontcourt, unsurprising given that he had the night off against Chicago. Drummond was all over the place in the first quarter, called into action just four minutes into the game after an ugly Adem Bona turnover in transition. He rewarded Nurse’s confidence with inspired play at both ends, blocking a couple of Cavs attempts at the rim and scoring 10 first-half points on nothing more than strength and effort. At worst, it looks like he is going to play well enough this year to make Bona compete for his job, and that should bring out the best in both players.

Trendon Watford played plenty in Tuesday’s loss to the Bulls, and he appears to be settling into the role Daryl Morey and Nick Nurse envisioned for him when the team signed him in July. With their ballhandlers battling tired legs, the Sixers leaned heavily on Watford to initiate offense — VJ Edgecombe even deferred to Watford to start several possessions so he could get off the ball and get some rest down in the corner. Watford’s slow, herky-jerky style kept Cleveland on their heels, and he was particularly effective on breaks/semi-transition plays, slithering in for some short floaters against dropping Cavs bigs. He led the way on offense for Philly for most of the first half, only overtaken by Maxey in the closing moments of the second quarter.

I have been genuinely impressed by Watford’s ability to fit into any role the Sixers have asked him to play. The passing vision and craft we saw last year in Brooklyn has translated and then some, with Watford’s short drop-off passes around the basket already becoming a staple of the offense. I don’t want the Sixers to become too reliant on his ballhandling because it means they’re losing on-ball reps for their developing guards, but he’s a safe set of hands to turn to off of the bench.

Even Justin Edwards hit some shots in the first half, which had to feel good for a guy who has spent most of this season either on the bench or nowhere close to making a jumper. I was somewhat surprised Nurse didn’t get a few minutes for Eric Gordon to try to swing the game with shooting variance, but hard to argue with a rotation that allowed them to hang in for 2.5 quarters in this spot.

But in the end, the Sixers needed 23 points from Watford and Drummond just to keep this game close in the first half. As valiant as their effort was, you can’t expect multiple bench role players to drag you to a road win against a good team, so when they played more “normal” halves afterward, the game got away. Shocker.

The first Edgecombe clunker

This was a particularly thorny matchup for VJ Edgecombe on paper. Cleveland does an excellent job preventing points in the paint and turns teams over as well as almost anyone in the league, either of which can be a problem for Edgecombe in isolation. Essentially, he needed to hit jumpers to bring the Cavs out to him and open up some clean looks inside the arc. No such luck.

Edgecombe is/was almost certainly due for a regression from downtown, unless you believe that he is going to be a high-volume shooter who can make 44 percent of his attempts as a rookie. So this game doesn’t particularly concern me, but it does give us an example of a downside game for Edgecombe. He didn’t completely check out of the game on offense, but he did appear to grow a bit discouraged as the misses piled up, ultimately settling into facilitator mode. And it was just as telling watching his teammates begin to ignore him in the second half, hunting their offense instead of finding the open man.

While Edgecombe’s willingness to scale down and do the other stuff helped keep this a “normal” bad game rather than a “catastrophic” bad game that gets him pulled from the rotation, there is a part of me that wants him to throw caution to the wind and keep firing during a slump. If Grimes is going to do so, the No. 3 overall pick should, too. But this game brought back reminders of the pre-NBA scouting report on Edgecombe — with the rookie struggling to create separation against pressure defense, the Cavs were able to speed him up and force him into low-percentage attempts inside the arc. It’s a good game for him to learn from.

Edgecombe probably deserved to pick up a few more assists for his troubles. Kelly Oubre missed what looked like a sure dunk or layup on a great Edgecombe pass in transition, for example, and he hit Quentin Grimes for open jumpers the vet could not connect on. So it goes. More than anything, he looks like a kid in need of the next two days off. Rest up, young fella.

Nick Nurse, why?

Easy to say after the result is final, but I would never have put Tyrese Maxey back on the floor in the fourth quarter, let alone the rest of their top-of-the-rotation players. This was a clear lost cause game, and there was no reason to do anything other than empty the bench. The medium-sized comeback effort in the fourth did not do much for me, but I will concede that convincing his players to throw in the towel would be tougher for Nurse than it is for me in this position.

I will give him no excuses for throwing Maxey and the rest of the gang back out there, after he called a timeout, with Philadelphia down 18 points and under four minutes to play. And then Nurse called another timeout, and ran his guards plus Kelly Oubre out there to accomplish nothing other than the final result looking a little closer.

This was a clear-cut opportunity to buy their tired legs some rest. You have to actually take it, though.

Other notes

— Seems crazy to say that a 27-7-9 game for Tyrese Maxey is “below the standard,” but that is exactly how good he has been to open the year. Ball security, as mentioned up top, was a problem throughout the game. After a similarly poor performance taking care of the ball against the Celtics last week, we are in monitoring territory.

— This fairly inevitable loss is part of why the loss to the Bulls stung so badly. With a deeper rotation and fresher legs, you coughed away a 24-point lead and lost in gut-wrenching fashion. Having to shake that off to play a good team on the road a night later is much easier said than done.

— Please, let’s get some more replay reviews after the game, too. Every day, I get closer to wanting replay removed from all sports rather than having to sit through lengthy stoppages that just make people mad. Live with real-time mistakes, and let’s keep games moving.