Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey carry Sixers to easy win over Magic

Thanks to a 28-point first half for Joel Embiid and a terrific closing kick by Tyrese Maxey, the Sixers coasted to a 124-109 win over the Magic in Orlando.

Here’s what I saw.

The Good

— What do you even say about Joel Embiid at this point?

I feel like I say this all of the time, but Embiid’s midrange dominance effectively breaks modern NBA defenses. Players and teams are used to conceding mid-range shots as low-value looks, but Embiid lives to get to those spots. And he has spent so much time there over the last half-decade that he has perfected the delicate, ballet-esque dance it takes to get his shots up from that area of the floor. He’s always close enough to draw fouls but never close enough to get his shot blocked.

The Magic, it seemed, thought they could win by letting the big dog isolate himself. Orlando wasn’t sending aggressive doubles and allowed him to attack a fair amount of single coverage, and that was clearly a mistake. Embiid got his jumper going early, and it was a steady drumbeat of makes over poor defenders’ heads for 19 first-half minutes.

(I feel some sympathy for Wendell Carter Jr., who Embiid has thrown in a trash compactor quite a bit throughout his career. WCJ is a pretty good player with value in the right role, and Embiid treats him like a guy they pulled out of the YMCA. It must be infuriating.)

Orlando has been a good defensive team this season, and there was absolutely nothing they could do to bother him. Mid-game, already in the midst of a heater, Embiid was so unfazed by the Magic that he pulled out a guard move, throwing one off of the glass to himself for a dunk. Even when it looks like you’ve played him to a standstill, there he goes again.

On top of carrying Philadelphia offensively, Embiid appeared to be the lone guy really dialed in on defense, cleaning up messes around the rim with great frequency. Shot blocking is more of his forte, but Embiid did an excellent job of using his length for drop-offs and entry passes, picking up four first-half steals to spark the transition game. It’s unreasonable to expect a scorer of this stature on this usage to also be your best defensive player, but Embiid is that for Philadelphia by leaps and bounds.

Last season, he earned his first MVP award with a ridiculously dominant offensive showing on one of the league’s best teams. This season, he is somehow comfortably better on offense than he was during the MVP year. We’re not talking about the best big man seasons ever anymore — this has been one of the greatest scoring seasons in the history of basketball. If he sustains this pace, he is going to etch a season in the books to match (or even exceed) the likes of Michael Jordan, Wilt Chamberlain, and the other all-time greats of the game. He might join a small handful of players in history to average 35 points per game, and he might do it playing less than four quarters in a huge chunk of his performances. This guy is flat-out ridiculous.

— I adored this game from Tyrese Maxey, even if he shot poorly from three. With each passing week, it feels like he levels up as a point guard running the show, and it’s hard to take for granted how perfectly he fits next to Embiid.

It has been wonderful to see Maxey taking some risks as a playmaker without needing to eat a bunch of turnovers as a result. He made skip passes to the corner with decent frequency on Friday night, and just as important is the placement on those passes. When Maxey throws a pass to his wing shooters — Nic Batum, Kelly Oubre, and so on — there’s no wasted motion those guys need to go into before a three-point attempt. Maxey’s ability to hit them in their respective shooting pockets grows by the game, due in part to the increased familiarity with his guys.

One thing we have probably glossed over in our fawning reviews of Maxey is his progress as a finisher around the basket. His touch on runners and floaters suggested he would have a deadly finishing package eventually, but he’s a small guy living amongst the trees, so you couldn’t count on it. Slowly but surely, you can see him borrowing from some of the great little men around the hoop, depositing Kyrie-esque shots off the glass and into the hoop with all sorts of English. Maxey attacked a tough Orlando team with reckless abandon on Friday, earning great results from his efforts.

As he has so many times this season, Maxey grabbed the game by the neck to open the fourth quarter, padding a lead they’d built largely through the big man. On the front end of a back-to-back, every minute of rest you can buy starters is precious, and Maxey put this game to bed with Embiid watching from the sidelines. When we cite Embiid’s ability to dominate in just three-quarters of action, a big piece of that credit goes to No. 0, who has turned quite a few close games into blowouts.

(By the way, Maxey racing Joe Ingles in the open floor has to be one of the most lopsided matchups in the NBA. Ingles is a gamer, but just save yourself the wear-and-tear and call the race ahead of time, buddy.)

— Kelly Oubre taking contested pull-up jumpers from midrange with Embiid burning down the nets? No.

Kelly Oubre playing active, aggressive defense and chasing after loose balls? Can’t get enough.

This felt like a tale of two halves for Oubre, who got a bit lost in the shuffle early but came out of halftime with a new sense of purpose. He got himself going with some energy plays on both ends, and while I sometimes hate that old cliche about the ball finding energy, the basketball gods rewarded Oubre for that work.

— I’m not sure how Patrick Beverley is as good of a rebounder as he is, given his size and athleticism limitations, but I love watching him slice through waves of players to go up and grab one. They have a lot of guys who struggle with the basic principle of “go get the ball” but he is not one of them.

— Terquavion Smith hit back-to-back threes in garbage time. Build the team around Terq!

The Bad

— After a few months of sweet relief from rebounding struggles, we’re back to wondering why the Sixers can’t finish off possessions.

I can’t blame Embiid for (most of) the problems here. In many cases, Philadelphia gave up offensive rebounds when Embiid had to step up and meet a pull-up shooter who had gone by a teammate, or when he had switched onto a guy far away from the basket.

— I’m hoping this doesn’t turn into a larger trend, but there have been some disgusting transition possessions on offense this week. The Sixers gave away some needed points against the Nuggets with clunky fast breaks, and they gave away some more in the Magic game on Friday.

We have plenty of laughs about De’Anthony Melton as a transition attacker in this space, but at least when he gets the ball on the break, he usually gets a shot attempt up. It might hit the underside of the rim, but I’ll take that over a pass out of bounds or a traffic jam from guys running into one another.

The Ugly

— I’m all for Nic Batum playing a bit of pressure defense and using his wingspan to mess with guards, but there’s been a few too many silly fouls from doing so lately. Fouling Jalen Suggs at halfcourt is no bueno.