Sixers get humiliated by Knicks on national television

The Knicks came to Philly and turned it into MSG South, beating up the Sixers in comprehensive fashion for a 128-92 defeat. That margin might even flatter the Sixers, who got punked in every possible way.

Here’s what I saw.

The Good

— The game ended.

The Bad

— If you squinted your eyes hard enough to blur out the coaching staff on the sideline, you could have convinced yourself you were watching the 2022-23 Sixers in the first half of this game. I guess you’d have to pretend one of these guys was James Harden, but that’s neither here nor there.

Philadelphia’s primary sources of pain were on the glass and running back to stop the Knicks in transition. The Knicks, like many Tom Thibodeau teams at other stops, are a team that rarely allows you to feel comfortable. They play physical defense, they bring hard-nosed players in off of the bench, and they just upgraded the starting lineup by getting OG Anunoby. The Sixers did not enter the arena prepared for that, apparently, because New York was allowed to set the tone in a lot of meaningful ways.

There is a vocal “Start Oubre!” contingent growing in the fanbase, and I think he has been far better than expected to the point of that being a fair conversation. That being said, there were several occasions where his teammates (and Embiid specifically) glared in his direction after mistakes on rotations, box outs, and other details on defense. It’s not a commentary on Oubre’s defense, which has been mostly good this year, so much as it is the value of continuity. Down three rotation players and one of their entrenched starters, Philadelphia’s overall sense of where to be and when was two or three beats off.

You have to tip your caps to the Knicks for shooting the hell out of the ball, certainly. New York managed a blistering 61.9 percent from three in the first half, which would be enough to beat basically any team on any court on any night in the world. That said, the Sixers were the culprits in helping them get going. Some of New York’s early makes came on second-chance possessions, with the Sixers fumbling rebounds or failing to get back in transition. The Knicks punished them in a big way for those errors, and once they built up a head of steam, it was hard for the Sixers to stuff the cat back in the bag.

— Seeing Joel Embiid grimacing and limping in the first 30 seconds of the game was not exactly what you wanted to see after he was out for over a week with an ankle injury. Even with no tweaks, Embiid has admitted he has to get his lungs back, so dealing with both problems in a game against a rock-solid team is suboptimal.

And though he started well, winning the early battles with Isaiah Hartenstein by getting to any spot he wanted, that faded quickly. The Knicks did a good job of flustering him with mix-and-match coverage and late help from different angles — Anunoby’s influence on their plan was made clear immediately, with the former Raptors wing helping on drives in addition to defending Embiid on an isolation possession or two. On a couple of different first-half drives, Embiid thought he had the Knicks beat, only for someone to swoop in and block his shot from an odd angle.

The third quarter was kinder to Embiid, who started to correct a shaky night from midrange by getting himself going at the free-throw line. But even the charity stripe was an adventure for the big man at times, with some uncharacteristic misses leaving him to chase that 30-10 streak down the stretch of the fourth quarter.

(Let’s revisit the 30-10 thing in a second.)

It didn’t look like he was particularly explosive all night, which impacted him all over the floor. When he was able to stand tall at the rim, he made some excellent plays, but the Knicks made him move around enough to neuter his effectiveness there. He was not the main problem on the glass, but he was part of the problem, certainly, holding one hand in the air and not jumping much as balls flew away from him.

He’s going to catch a raft of shit for this outing, and he will have deserved at least some of that scorn. And frankly, I wouldn’t bet on him playing tomorrow night against Utah, which would be the cherry on top of this miserable game.

— Tobias Harris’ success is predicated on the idea that he can go past slower players and bully weaker players. Well, Julius Randle isn’t either of those things. So what’s the plan when that happens?

The answer on Friday night was, “There is no plan.” Harris has had some real stinkers for the Sixers during his time here (and in fairness, some great games) but this one stood out for what a headless chicken he played like. His usual attacking in the mid-post had no chance of working. When he tried to play strong man on the break, and the Knicks did a great job of walling him off from the rim. And frankly, he just didn’t shoot enough to leave any kind of impression on this game, turning in the sort of low-volume game that has confounded fans and analysts for years. Why is a guy who is a central piece of this team constantly finding it so difficult to be involved in the offense?

Yes, Embiid and Maxey were high-volume guys, as they always are. I am done with that being an excuse for Harris to just disappear entirely from the game for quarters at a time. Go find the ball, get up a three, do something to change the state of things to help the team out. Cosplaying as a helpless passenger sure as hell isn’t doing anything productive.

(Harris was eventually removed from this game with ankle soreness and ruled out at the start of the fourth quarter. The points all stand.)

— The numbers paint a picture of a pretty good Tyrese Maxey performance, but I didn’t think the eye test supported that. He missed a lot of big “swing” shots that could have changed the complexion of this game, and his path to efficiency as a scorer was drive after drive to the basket, even when the Knicks had walled him off from a clean look at the hoop. He marched his way to double-digit free throws, which is good no matter how you slice it, but even with the high volume of assists to go along with that, it didn’t feel like he was particularly incisive as a playmaker.

Perhaps more importantly, he was not any help with their main problems of the night, and the Knicks managed to get him in quite a few horrible matchups throughout the evening. The law of averages saw him emerge as the winner in a few of those — Julius Randle bulldozing him for a charge couldn’t have felt great — but he was a turnstile for a lot of this game.

I don’t think I need to see a Springer-Beverley-House-Morris combo on the floor ever again. Try different stuff, I get it, but yikes.

The Ugly

— I think Joel Embiid’s 30-10 streak has been a really cool thing to watch happen, especially when you consider that he put up some of those games without needing to play in fourth quarters. And I enjoy the big guy’s brand of basketball a lot more than the average person.

But it was awesome watching the Knicks absolutely punk the Sixers in extended garbage time because Embiid stayed in ostensibly to chase that streak milestone. The basketball gods spit on the Sixers for the stat padding, and good for them.

But hey, he managed to do something that hasn’t been done since the early 1970s, so that’s still an accomplishment of some sort, even if it lost some luster.

— Paul Reed turning a good Maxey pass into a heinous spin move into a missed shot was enough for Nurse to call in Embiid with almost 10 minutes left in the game, well before he would normally check in. That’s how you know you’ve messed up.

— A screenshot of this tweet should arguably be the lead photo for the recap:

Disgusting! Heinous! Insert your favorite synonym for ugly here!

— Patrick Beverley fouling the shit out of Miles McBride and then making a passionate case to the officials that he did nothing wrong was bold, I’ll give him that much.

— The number of disingenuous arguments about the Sixers that will emerge from this game will drive me personally insane. Sure, the Sixers have beaten several elite teams and have been generally excellent this season, but this is the most recent thing that happened, so nothing else matters.