Instant observations: VJ Edgecombe scores 35 points in Sixers’ loss to Thunder

VJ Edgecombe battled valiantly but could not overcome the Thunder by himself, scoring 35 points in a 123-103 Sixers loss on Monday night. Edgecombe was 7/15 from three, setting a new career high for makes in a single game.

Here’s what I saw.

Good effort, rook

Monday’s honorary Denzel Washington “I’m Leaving Here With Something!” award goes to VJ Edgecombe, who was on a shot-per-minute pace to open the game and was the only player truly worth watching for Philadelphia. The Thunder forced him into some uber-tough attempts from deep, crowding him on the release without fouling, but he was able to make enough jumpers to keep the defense honest and preserve hope that he could unlock the Thunder inside the arc.

Spoiler alert: he did not unlock the Thunder inside the arc. But I’m not sure there’s anything he could have done to open the paint up, with Oklahoma City happy to cheat off the likes of Adem Bona, Dominick Barlow, Trendon Watford, Marjon Beauchamp, and Dalen Terry, a group that made up half of Philadelphia’s available rotation players. So Edgecombe was forced to attack through a variety of midrange attempts, defenders always within striking distance to wave a hand or two in his face. Frankly, he did better than expected on those shots, hitting some extraordinarily tough sidestep jumpers and runners as Chet Holmgren and Co. did their best to match him step for step.

The thing that made me happiest about Edgecombe’s outing is that it was a volume-scoring classic that came after he got off to a relatively slow start, 2/6 from the field and sputtering with Lu Dort chasing him all over the floor. We have seen games where Edgecombe has allowed a slow start to goad him into a tertiary role, but the Sixers did not have the luxury of standing in the corner and hoping someone else would drag this team toward respectability. After halftime, it was showtime for their star rookie, who unleashed a barrage of threes on the Thunder to do anything to keep the game within arm’s reach.

After building a bit of steam in the third, Edgecombe had one last gasp in him, scoring 10 points in the first 3.5 minutes of the fourth quarter, made more impressive by the fact that he was visibly tired after playing the entire third quarter, too. After standing with his hands on his hips and deferring to end the third, he flew down the floor for two tough transition buckets, eventually canning a catch-and-shoot three to force a Thunder timeout and offer one last glimmer of hope for Philadelphia.

His scoring variety is already far ahead of where most would have projected coming out of Baylor, and reps as the featured option over the last couple of weeks will only benefit Edgecombe over the long term. Edgecombe had a beautiful sequence late in the third quarter, drawing two defenders on a drive before dropping the ball off to Dalen Terry, relocating to the corner, and nailing a three on the swing pass after getting his feet set. You seem to see something new from Edgecombe every game, whether it’s a spin move into a runner as we saw in Utah or more shooting progress, as he offered on Monday night.

A rookie scoring 35 points against the Thunder is impressive on a basic level, but doing it with this supporting cast and all the attention of the defense on him ranks at or near the top of Edgecombe’s biggest accomplishments this season, if you’re asking me.

That went about as expected

Even if Quentin Grimes had managed to play through illness to join the Sixers for this one, the result would have looked about the same. This Thunder team is elite, capable of kneecapping the best offenses around the league, so a lineup starting three non-shooters is unlikely to do much to make the game interesting. Even still, I found myself quite disappointed with Philadelphia’s process on both sides of the ball, and their inability to execute in the first half left them drawing dead after halftime.

I am not sure how much of a difference the Sixers could have made with off-ball movement and intent, but I do know they hardly tried to manufacture it. After getting VJ Edgecombe a couple of quality looks from three using pindown screens in the opening minutes, the Sixers largely abandoned those efforts for the rest of the first half, shifting him back to the point of attack and asking him to create out of a variety of standstill situations up top. I also thought there was a (now expected) lack of ruthlessness. It was strange that there wasn’t more effort to attack Jared McCain as a weak link in the defensive chain, as his inability to hang on that end of the floor was at least part of the justification for moving him to OKC in the first place.

Playing zone against the Thunder is actually a strategy I can support on some level, given that SGA is relatively low on volume from deep and that there are at least a couple of shooters you’d probably be willing to leave open on a given possession. But the Thunder were on fire from deep in Monday’s first half, making the decision to sit back in zone all the more perplexing. And unfortunately, Philadelphia’s execution of their zone to end the first half was as bad as it gets, gifting three wide-open threes in the corner to Jaylin Williams, who has been a perfectly capable shooter his entire career. Testing him on one open one is fine, I guess, but allowing him to step into a third make by design seems like lunacy to me, completely losing sight of what is happening on the floor.

To the team’s credit, they came out of halftime and fought back, opening the third on a 13-4 run by stringing a few stops together and then killing the Thunder on the break, neutralizing their opponent’s terrific half-court defense. How funny that it was this Sixers group that was able to win the third quarter against the league’s best team, running hard and making threes and playing connected enough defense to ward off the champs for a bit. The 82-game slate can be funny in that way, with the weariest rosters catching elite teams off guard.

But it was right back to the expected outcome from there, with Philadelphia’s miserable spacing leading to wasted possession after wasted possession, often ending with a late-clock jumper that fell harmlessly off the iron. I can’t say I particularly blame anyone for how it went, and I welcome the return of Paul George (and perhaps Joel Embiid) on Wednesday.

Other notes

— If the Sixers could go into next season with a couple of guys like Dalen Terry and Marjon Beauchamp on the end of the bench instead of, well, very old veterans, I would be happy with that outcome. Beauchamp hit a few threes and pretty consistently made the right rotations and extra effort plays on defense, which is all you can ask for.

— I increasingly think successful Trendon Watford post-ups are actually a bad thing for the Sixers, because it tricks them into wasting 2-3 more possessions where he fumbles the ball around the block and wastes time on the shot clock before they turn the ball over or force up an end-of-clock prayer.

— The overturned foul on Shai Gilgeous-Alexander at the end of the first quarter is the perfect plank in my “get rid of all replay reviews” platform. Offering up a horse manure explanation to try to trick the public into thinking that it’s not a foul to rake a guy’s arm because you initially made contact with the basketball is a waste of everyone’s time. Live with the human error of no replay and be done with it.

Tough night for the zebras across the board, honestly.