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The Sixers’ first game of the 2020-21 season without their All-Star center certainly didn’t go as planned.
They lost to the Cavaliers on Sunday night, 118-94, to drop to 2-1. Joel Embiid was excluded shortly before the report due to strain in his back.
Andre Drummond of Cleveland scored 24 points and had 14 rebounds. Tobias Harris recorded 16 points, nine rebounds and five assists for the Sixers.
Embiid had not appeared on any of the official NBA injury reports earlier today, and head coach Doc Rivers chose not to disclose whether the Sixers would leave their All-Star center out in Game 2 of the day. opening of the team. return. Rivers said after the match that Embiid was supposed to play and that his health was “not of concern”.
“He was actually planning to go and came out on the floor, and he had some stiffness in his back,” Rivers said. “We just thought, why the luck so early in the season?”
Embiid played 31 minutes on Saturday in the Sixers’ win over the Knicks, including a 10:24 am stint to start the game, and had a best score of 27 points and 10 rebounds. His absence on Sunday is not alarming as Rivers and the Sixers attempt to strike a balance that keeps the players healthy, well conditioned and working effectively with each other. It’s not easy, as Rivers is well aware, but the availability of Embiid for bigger games is an obvious priority, and there was no point in having him play on less than full health.
Furkan Korkmaz was released early in the fourth quarter. Rivers said he wasn’t sure of his status and didn’t want to guess.
Next up for the Sixers is a Tuesday game against the Raptors.
Here are observations on their loss in Cleveland:
A big fall with the big men of the Sixers
Dwight Howard started in Embiid’s place and was frustrated with the refereeing for much of the game. He landed his third foul with 7:54 left in the second quarter for an inside brawl with Drummond, which forced Tony Bradley to come in earlier than expected for his second stint.
Bradley was the Sixers’ third string center – at least for the first half. The 22-year-old picked up two first blocks, one on a JaVale McGee jumper and one on a Cedi Osman driving layup attempt. He was a great rebounder last season in 58 games for the Jazz and believes he has the ability to “stretch five”. Defensive agility and overall explosiveness are weaknesses of the UNC product, and its outside fire is mostly untapped to this day. You’d think Bradley should still have the game to keep the fort going as Howard’s replacement in those situations when Embiid is out, but it wasn’t a good start. He finished with four of 2 points for 7 shots and eight rebounds in 17 minutes.
The Sixers went with Mike Scott as a smallball center to close the first half. As if things couldn’t get worse for the Sixers, McGee exhausted three points. He had turned 6 out of 35 long distance during his NBA career entering the game. Scott also took Bradley’s save center minutes in the second half, before Bradley came in again for garbage time in the fourth quarter.
It’s like saying the water is wet, but yes, Embiid is very valuable to the Sixers on both ends of the ground. As the list stands, it looks like both stars will need to be in good health for the Sixers to succeed in the playoffs.
Exceeding the margin of error
A lot of the Sixers’ defensive issues in this game can be attributed to Embiid sitting down and the still undefeated Cavs performing well.
That said, the team’s collective energy and effort levels plummeted as Cleveland took a big lead in the second quarter. A quick 3-1 break that ended with Drummond converting against Harris and no other Sixers near the game was a weak spot.
Sloppy turnovers presented the Cavs with too many of these chances. A softly thrown pass from Danny Green to Howard led to another transition layup from Drummond early in the third quarter and forced Rivers to call a time out. Without Embiid anchoring the defense, the Sixers’ margin of error is inevitably lower – even against less talented opponents on paper than they are.
Not an effective offensively backup plan
Harris scored the Sixers’ first five points by fouling a base practice and sinking a three from the top of the key in transition. Early positives for Harris included the fact that he tried three catch-and-shoot triples in the first four minutes of the game and didn’t start as badly in his defensive game against Larry Nance Jr. as he did. he had done it Saturday night against Julius Randle. An in-flight decision to throw a pass chosen by Darius Garland of Cleveland was negative. He’s headed in the right direction, but the Sixers would have needed Harris to be formidable to beat the Cavs given how hard the team has struggled as a whole.
While Ben Simmons’ concept of pushing the ball and kicking shooters sounds good in theory and has worked at times in the past, it’s not a winning formula if those shooters don’t knock jumpers down to a good pace. Sixers in addition to Harris shot 6 for 31 on three runs, and the team only made 5 of 16 midrange attempts, per Cleaning the Glass.
It also didn’t help that Simmons seemed rushed and out of control at times as he constantly looked for transition opportunities. The 24-year-old has made six of the Sixers’ 21 turnovers. He posted 15 points, six rebounds, four assists, two blocks and two steals.
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