Sixers squeak out road victory over Utah Jazz for third straight win

The Sixers sputtered through a weekend date with the Jazz but ultimately emerged with a 114-111 win over Utah to pick up their third-straight win.

Here’s what I saw.

The Good

— After a miserable start to the game for Philadelphia, there was a clear turning point in this game: when Guerschon Yabusele and Joel Embiid played together in the frontcourt. The starting lineup had done poorly, and the Yabusele at the five lineups were saddled by an ultra-small combo of players Yabusele would never be able to keep afloat on defense. But the Frenchman and the French speaker together? Oh yeah, brother.

Yabusele’s impact on this team has been far more extraordinary than I think numbers can capture, in that he seems to fill whatever void the Sixers have night after night after night. With Utah absolutely bludgeoning Philly on the O-glass early in this game, Yabusele got to work attacking the glass right away on Saturday.

Yabusele had a rebound on a missed free throw the moment he stepped on the floor, and though he wasn’t credited with another on a free-throw miss for Embiid, his hustle forced a bad third foul from Jazz center Walker Kessler in the scramble for the ball. Kessler’s foul trouble weakened Utah at the rim on both ends of the floor, playing a huge role in the comeback push that put the Sixers in front at halftime.

— I honestly wasn’t sure where I wanted to put Joel Embiid for this game. The scoring was pretty good, he had some awesome defensive moments, yet he also did some of the things that drive you crazy for a player of his caliber. The Confusing wasn’t part of a famous movie title, so he gets stuck down here, and we’ll go through both sides of the argument.

I thought he left a lot of money on the table in this game. With the Sixers in the midst of a big run in the second quarter, Embiid had several ghastly turnovers coming down the stretch to kill some of the momentum. There was a possession where he tried to run before catching the ball that led to it clanging off of his hands; there was a brutal travel that came from Embiid being indecisive on whether to shoot or drive; and the cherry on top was a no-look, overhead pass to Ricky Council IV, a needlessly risky play that floated harmlessly out of bounds.

If anything this is the flaw in Embiid’s game that I think is most meaningful to his playoff struggles. The health problems are real and have hurt his impact, but I think his lack of ball security and situational awareness have loomed largest in big games and moments. It’s easy to gloss over these moments in the regular season against the Jazz, but you can’t expect to suddenly be a ball security guy in the playoffs if you’re not that guy in the regular season.

For those of us monitoring Embiid’s health and conditioning — when are we not? — I would say there were plenty of encouraging signs in this game. When Embiid and Maxey ran the patented pick-and-roll to get Embiid the ball at the left elbow, his speed out of the catch was excellent. Rarely do you see Embiid react on those plays like a traditional “roll man” but there was a decent amount of that here, with Embiid hitting flat-footed defenders with one quick dribble before either going up to score or using a pump fake to lift the defender out of place.

(His inability or unwillingness to dunk? That, I would say, is a slight concern. Ditto the rebounding woes.)

But when it was time to make a run late in the game, it was also Embiid who the team defaulted to, and he gave them a much better chance of getting a good look than anyone else on the roster. Embiid battled with Kessler all night long, not always ending up on the winning side of things. He won enough battles and made enough impactful ball fakes to put Kessler in foul trouble, giving himself (and by extension, the whole offense) enough space to cobble together a coherent offense.

Despite his current limitations, Embiid has also been a big-time playmaker for these guys on defense. It was fitting that he hauled in Utah’s final attempt to extend this game, allowing him to end the night with three steals and three blocks. Pretty good.

— The Sixers will not be able to produce a successful season if Paul George continues to lag this far behind his career numbers as a shooter. There’s just no working around one of your stars shooting this poorly. But it has been almost as shocking during this extended cold spell to watch George blanket other teams on defense and ignore the offensive struggles to make an impact elsewhere.

While Saturday night featured a particularly larcenous George, he has been a terror in off-ball defense all season. A young, talent-strapped team like Utah is just not prepared for the sort of defense George hits you with from off-ball. He has elite timing in help and the wingspan to get his hands on just about any ball you leave exposed, and the Jazz never really had a feel for when he was going to close the gap and swarm a ballhandler. Before the Sixers found their sea legs on offense, their transition game and early offense allowed them to build some momentum, and George played a critical part of that.

It helps to have him running the break after the turnover, naturally:

George’s burst and athleticism have been a subject of hot debate this year, with the 34-year-old looking awesome on defense but incapable of consistent explosion when attacking the rim. This might not be a poster (or anything close), but watching George get by a defender and then finish with two hands out of a jump stop is a welcome sight for this writer:

If he starts making some shots…

(But seriously, man, make some shots. That’s your whole thing!)

— Nick Nurse won two different fourth-quarter challenges, it’s a Christmas miracle.

The Bad

— This game looked to be on the verge of over when the Sixers pushed the lead to double digits early in the second half. Rather than hammering some of their staple actions to pull away, and rather than going directly at the opposing center in foul trouble, they just spread it out and bombed away from deep. I’m not sure I would have drawn it up that way.

I am not sure why this team forgets they can just run the same play over and over and get a quality look out of it. They seemingly spent the 1st and 3rd quarters ignoring the pocket pass to Embiid at the elbow.

— Tyrese Maxey had a hell of a start to the week, but this game brought all his issues as a lead guard right back to the forefront. The Jazz repeatedly funneled him into multiple defenders at the rim and dared him to try to beat them as a passer. He doesn’t get a demerit for the possessions where he made the right read and other guys missed shots. But making the read in the first place was a massive problem for Maxey in this game, as it has been for much of this season.

Two plays immediately jump out:

• Maxey had Caleb Martin with him for an easy two-on-one transition opportunity in the second half. He decided to take a contested layup, which he proceeded to miss, and then missed the follow-up three that was gifted to him after a teammate plucked down the offensive rebound
• Maxey drove right into a defender on a block/charge play that fortunately went his way midway through the fourth. He had at least two passing options after turning the corner, and he bulldozed through instead.

At least he made some huge threes in crunch time to salvage it (and I liked his defensive effort, which has been the case for most of the year). Putting up 30 on an off night shows you how dangerous that Embiid/Maxey combination is in the middle of the floor.

— Kelly Oubre has earned a lot of positive reviews in this space for his recent play. He was borderline point-shaving in this game. Complete disaster on defense and a non-threat for most of the game on offense.

Throw Ricky Council IV in the “stunk it up” group as well. One of those nights where you can see the lack of awareness and why Nick Nurse would find it hard to trust him.

— Let us never speak of the defense from the first quarter again. Teamwide failure to open it up. A lot of fart sniffing in the locker room after the Celtics win, I guess.

The Ugly

— Make. Your. Goddamn. Free. Throws.

— What in god’s name was anyone doing on Philadelphia’s possession that could have iced the game with around 40 seconds left? They had 2-3 horrific passes in short succession, ending with an insane George shot.

— In today’s edition of “What Are NBA Refs Doing Anymore?” the Sixers managed to earn a delay of game tech by calling a timeout and trying to challenge a call on the floor. And after the game went to commercial and we all came back to the arena together, the officials simply had Utah shoot the delay of game technical free throw, while the challenge (apparently) did not happen. If that doesn’t make sense to you, welcome to the club.

The refs in Utah missed an obvious call that should have ended with the Sixers having possession, but let’s just set aside that they smoked that. After you figured out that the Sixers were calling a timeout to challenge a call, it doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense to deny the challenge request but still award them the timeout, because they weren’t going to call one there otherwise. Either:

• Grant the timeout and the challenge
• Don’t grant the timeout or the challenge

This is very simple stuff to a person who watches a lot of basketball, but it is advanced calculus to the people actually managing games, I suppose.