Shorthanded Sixers drop fifth straight game in loss to Pacers

The Sixers fell to 15-25 on the season following a 115-102 loss to the Pacers, dropping their fifth straight game in a season quickly descending into the depths of hell.

Here’s what I saw.

The Good

— I have felt a little bad for Adem Bona in recent weeks, because the rookie plays super hard, wants to do the right things, and clearly just lacks the experience and skill it takes to be an impact guy at this level. You feel sympathy for a guy trying his hardest who gets thrown into a brutal situation like this one, knowing that he should be getting lower leverage reps to improve for the future.

So it was a delight to see Bona pull a solid performance out of midair on Saturday night. The Pacers played their part in it with some ridiculous misreads on the scouting report — why would you lunge at a non-shooting center attacking from the perimeter, Obi Toppin? — but Bona also did plenty to help himself. No one has ever been able to question the kid’s competitiveness, and it finally produced some useful results for the Sixers around the rim. He had four offensive rebounds in the first half alone, sliding around a slim Indiana frontcourt to create second-chance opportunities.

He didn’t just win through activity, either. Bona has long been viewed as a guy who can’t create for himself or serve as much more than a play finisher around the rim, but he did an excellent job on quick attacks in this game, putting the ball on the floor into open space before exploding through the air for dunks. His ability to do something as simple as execute a dribble handoff has often been questioned, so it was a surprise to see him bursting through space off of his dribble, punishing the Pacers inside.

There were moments that felt like the game was finally slowing down for the rookie. Bona came down with an offensive rebound in the first quarter where he paused, searched for a kick-out pass, and then calmly deposited a jump hook, looking for the high-value look from three before taking matters into his own hands.

The Bad

— There is a good chance that Tyrese Maxey will spend the rest of the year imitating Sisyphus, pushing this boulder of a basketball team up a mountain just to watch it splatter him anytime he gets close to salvation. All he can do is focus on being the best version of himself and playing winning basketball, leaving the rest to fall into place.

It felt like Maxey was a bit too passive early on, deferring to less-talented teammates even when Indiana didn’t trap and double him. That turned out to be a misnomer. As the Sixers fell into an early hole, he sensed that there was no more time to wait, no opportunities that should be left for later in the game. Even when the Pacers sent two at Maxey, he was just as liable to try to split the double as he was to fire off a quick pass to his big man 30 feet from the hoop. In this instance, I embrace that choice, as I’d rather see Maxey trying to split doubles than watch Andre Drummond make decisions from beyond the three-point line.

Maxey managed to mix speeds and styles on his way to the rim, something that hasn’t often been the case this season. One thing that allows Maxey to do is to accentuate contact on his way to the basket, and he had one drive I particularly liked in the first half, driving his shoulder into Obi Toppin before depositing a layup and drawing the and-one foul. Beautiful.

And yet again, all of that work was essentially undone by his inability to make threes. It is maddening that he is having this poor of a season from deep, because it erases a lot of good work and decent process and attempts to steal games from better or more talented teams. His outside touch is just nonexistent when he needs it (namely, all of the time right now).

I’ll need to dig into the tape to make any bold proclamations about his playmaking, and assist numbers will probably be misleading in either direction for him for a while. That said, can’t say I recall an advanced pass he made all night. They need him to carve teams up, and this was more of a “take what they’re giving you” type of night. Who he is and who they need him to be are at odds.

— Andre Drummond genuinely believes in his heart of hearts that he is the greatest rebounder of all time. Here are three things that happened in the first half of Saturday’s game:

• Drummond fought Tyrese Maxey for an uncontested defensive rebound and knocked the ball out of bounds for an extra Pacers possession
• Drummond had a complete positioning advantage and allowed Myles Turner to tip a rebound directly to Andrew Nembhard for an uncontested layup
• Drummond got beaten to a defensive rebound by TJ McConnell

I didn’t expect him to come back into the lineup for the first time in two weeks looking like Wilt Chamberlain, but at some point this season, it would be nice if Drummond looked even close to the guy everyone was expecting him to be when he signed with Philly this offseason.

— Ricky Council IV is a human roller coaster. With one possession, you’re getting a breathtaking display of athleticism. On the next possession, he’s throwing up the worst attempt at a runner you have ever seen in your life. It’s a hell of an experience.

What I do appreciate is the effort and energy plays, because Council contributed quite a few of those. With Philadelphia only sort of in the game midway through the fourth quarter, Council had a nice individual run, canning a big three from the corner on one possession before swooping in for an offensive rebound and a nice touch shot at the rim afterward. He was all over the box score, picking up three steals and a pair of assists on Saturday night, constantly popping up with the ball (for better or for worse).

The Ugly

— Say what you will about the Sixers for losing to this team, but that Pacers performance was pretty disgusting. Brutal, unforced turnovers on one end, complete anarchy with their defensive game plan, just an ugly basketball performance from a team that has been playing really well lately.

Of course, even an ugly Pacers performance is enough to beat this version of the Sixers.

— Justin Edwards came back to Earth in this one. He got skunked from three, made a ton of mental errors away from the play on defense, and fouled out in just under 22 minutes as a result of a lot of undisciplined reaching. So it goes.

— Pete Nance played crunch-time minutes for this team on Saturday night, there is no way I am making it through the end of the season.