Sixers lose to Celtics in battle of hospital rosters

A shorthanded Sixers team lost to a shorthanded Celtics team 123-105, because a one-sided rivalry doesn’t appear to change if you remove a bunch of big names on both sides. Philadelphia is now 21-41, a full 20 games under .500.

Here’s what I saw.

The Good

— There is a small part of me that wonders whether Kelly Oubre would consider opting out of his deal to explore free agency in earnest. His stay with the Sixers has accomplished exactly what he would have hoped for when he signed a minimum contract two years ago, proving that he can slide into a smaller role effectively while being a self-creation option whenever you might need it.

Oubre was struggling for the first 24 minutes of this game, along with everyone else, 3/11 from the field with not much going for him on either end. But with the Sixers down 18 coming out of the halftime tunnel, he came out with a chip on his shoulder in the second half, locking in on both ends until the game eventually was out of his control.

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it 100 times — Oubre continues to play hard in spite of all the nonsense happening around him. He finished with 27 points, five rebounds, and six assists, and he was a physical presence on a night when the Sixers offered very little resistance.

— Pretty easily the best game of Lonnie Walker IV’s tenure with the Sixers, not that there have been many positive standout moments in the games before this one. He’s an offense-first guy who has not been able to hit water from a boat, and he finally started pushing in the right direction against Boston. I would imagine he felt he had a little something to prove after his Exhibit 10 deal with the Celtics led to him playing in Lithuania.

Aside from the three-point shooting, Walker had an acrobatic finish on a drive for his only other points of the night, reminding you of the flashes that have drawn scouts in at times. Few and far between as they’ve been for the Sixers, they’ll be hoping to see a bit more consistency from him in the month ahead.

— The game ended.

The Bad

— The game started.

— I don’t know how wise it is to judge Guerschon Yabusele for what he can and can’t do when the most important players on the team are in street clothes. I do think there is a growing body of evidence that he may not be a defensive fit at either position he would need to play in order to be a long-term player in Philadelphia.

The center spot is where Yabusele has provided a lot of his value this year because of the floor spacing and playmaking he provides from that spot on offense. It was enough to offset the major defensive concerns, but even then, it was enough to offset them on a team that had nothing good going. When they’re (presumably) in more of a position to try to win next year, Yabusele’s inability to protect the rim matters a lot, especially if you use a CBA exception to retain him as a primary frontcourt player.

When Andre Drummond left the game in the first quarter, it was as if a red carpet was rolled out for Jayson Tatum. Leaky perimeter defense did nothing to help matters, but Yabusele just had no chance to realistically challenge shots around the basket. You saw the opposite concern with Drummond as the five — with the bigger man only able to play in drop coverage, the Celtics could easily step into pull-up threes on pick-and-rolls or hit Luke Kornet for an easy look on spot-up attempts.

In any case, that means Yabusele has to be adaptable at the power forward spot, able to switch across at least a couple of positions (with big wings and forwards specifically). And I don’t see that, at least not over extended minutes. He’s a bit too slow to constantly be out on the perimeter, and is probably part of the reason you’re playing a lot of zone if you’re the Sixers this year. If Joel Embiid was the Joel Embiid of old, you could probably live with that as long as Yabusele can steer drivers into their rim protector, but that guy hasn’t been there for a while now.

So the Sixers will likely have to think long and hard about what the future actually looks like for Yabusele. He’s good, smart, and skilled, but he might be a man without a proper home in the lineup.

— This game drove home how much of Philadelphia’s recent competitiveness came down to Quentin Grimes going off. The relative shot quality for Grimes was similar on Thursday night, with the Houston native stepping into pull-up jumpers and the occasional layup attempt with total conviction. And he missed just about all of them badly, flinging shots off of the backboard or hard off of the rim as the Celtics’ lead grew and grew the longer the night went on.

To Grimes’ credit, he didn’t spend the game trying to shoot through it and chase his numbers, which would have been understandable in the circumstances. A guard playing out of position at the point in the middle of a contract push? Come on. But he deferred to teammates for most of the final 2.5 quarters, which is a level of awareness I can appreciate.

The Ugly

— I have been perplexed at Jeff Dowtin getting minutes over Jared Butler after the Sixers made trading for the latter one of their few meaningful deadline moves. After watching Butler play first-half minutes again on Thursday, it’s hard to argue with the head coach’s decision to make him a low priority in the rotation.

— Ricky Council IV not getting in the game until the blowout was on in the fourth quarter feels like a pretty bad sign for his future in Philadelphia.

— We’re at the point of the “This season is over” cycle where there are only so many musings I can make about the basketball product on the floor. We may eventually reach the point where I just start throwing random takes in this space to see if anyone is actually paying attention.

For example, who do you think is the greatest American band? There are many candidates for the title, but my submission would be P-Funk. It might be cheating because they’re a “collective” that mashes together two bands, but I don’t care. Insane amount of musical talent and influence that reaches across musical genres, with at least a couple of genuine legends who went on to form prolific individual/side projects of their own.