Warm-Up

The Sixers hadn’t lost a game on the road nor one with its top players available until Friday night in Cleveland. Blowouts are never fun, and this year’s team specifically will be ridiculed whenever they do lose a high-profile game in such a fashion. Fortunately, the Sixers were able to get the taste of defeat out of their mouths quickly. It certainly wasn’t the most inspiring defensive performance, but Philadelphia won its 9th game of the season yesterday afternoon.

LeBron James, in particular, struggled against the Cavs (he wasn’t the only high-profile Sixer to do so). He bounced back nicely on the offensive end, finishing with 22 points, five rebounds, and five assists.

It was the 973rd 20-5-5 game of his career. Will he get to 1000 before his retirement?

Jabari Walker backed up Joel Embiid again with Adem Bona still out. Walker won’t have the size to be a difference maker on defense but the Sixers can at least switch more when he is on the floor. His best skill may be how hard he plays. On Sunday he grabbed five offensive rebounds en route to 11 total. He also made a three. Sixers to do that off the bench? Andre Drummond, Chuma Okeke (ah, the 2025 tank,) Paul Reed, Dwight Howard, Toni Kukoč, and Ron Anderson (who scored 36 when he reached those numbers). Walker almost had a nice assist on a backdoor cut from Tyrese Maxey but Maxey missed.

The offense continues to look stagnant at times. The shot distribution has been fairly even. Each starter takes at least 11 shots per game. It helps that Dean Wade rarely ever shoots. Anfernee Simons has either been extremely hot or ice cold. There has been no in between thus far. Catch and shoot opportunities across the board could increase. Tyrese Maxey, specifically, needs more volume in that scenario. He is only making 36.7 percent of his catch and shoot threes, but his volume is fifth highest on the team. Simons, Jaylen Brown and VJ Edgecombe are all shooting at least 38 percent on catch and shoot shots.

I have little doubt they will become a good offense, but it hasn’t clicked yet.

Three Things

VJ Edgecombe and LaMelo Ball are the only two players with at least 165 made threes, 120 steals, and 475 rebounds across the first 85 games of a career. Edgecombe averaged 16 points, 4.5 rebounds, 3.3 assists, and 2.3 steals while shooting 50 percent from three during this four-game stretch. He struggled shooting from three to begin the season, making only 32 percent attempts in October. Edgecombe’s role on defense is easily defined, but how he fits on offense will change quite regularly. Although on offense he’ll need to make open threes. He’ll consistently see open looks. He has made at least one three in each game he has played this season besides the season opener. And some of his recent steals have been sensational.

Jaylen Brown finished the first half of Wednesday’s win over Detroit with 23 points, four rebounds, one steal, and three three-pointers made. Only Luka Dončić, LaMelo Ball, Anthony Edwards, and Jamal Murray have put up similar numbers in a half this season. (Brown blew a point-blank layup, otherwise he’d have a 25-point first half.) The play that stood out, however, happened during his seven–point second half. The Sixers mostly had things under control but Detroit wouldn’t go away when Brown blocked Cade Cunningham’s three-point attempt in the four-point game with 37 seconds left. He secured the rebound and the Sixers held on.

Part of this blog series is to write about the bad. The Sixers are 9-2 but it has been far from perfect, specifically the offense. Joel Embiid has made 33.3 percent of his shots over the past five games. It is the worst stretch of his career by far. He failed to score a field goal for the second time of his career in Friday’s embarrassment. (The first happened in Toronto, a hellish place for him during the early portion of his career. He famously scored zero points as Marc Gasol dominated.) Defenses today rarely have the archetype of players like Gasol, Al Horford, or Steven Adams that have given Embiid trouble (I know Horford and Adams are active but they are the exception now). His three-point shot continues to be an issue. One will eventually go in, you’d think. The last one he made happened with seconds left in the first half of the home opener against Cleveland. During Sunday’s win he missed some easy looks. He did, however, grab eight offensive rebounds. It is vital he does the little things when his shot isn’t falling. I preferred the shots he took on Sunday, give or take a couple, compared to the ones he settled with on Friday.

(An Embiid aside but he tried not once, not twice, but three times to find LeBron James for a basket under the basket on Sunday. He finally succeeded after two turnovers.)

Milestone Tracker Interlude

LeBron James needs 16 assists to surpass Jason Kidd for third most in NBA history, which means it should happen in South Philly this week.

Dean Wade has three turnovers in 222 minutes on the season.

Joel Embiid is 287 points away from 14,000 career points. Jaylen Brown is 418 away.

Random but fun: The Sixers have now won a game each day of the week. They are 1-0 on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday; they are 1-1 on Friday and Sunday; and they are 2-0 on Thursday and Saturday.

Week Ahead

The first Celtics matchup of the season is top billing. It’ll be weird for Jaylen Brown. I am sure Boston has a specific way they want to cover Brown. It’ll be interesting to see how Brown plays. Will he try to overcompensate? Will he let the game come to him? The result will be a referendum on the Brown-Paul George swap, at least on the Internet. (Talk about an unhealthy place.) But it is just one game. Both teams should be at relatively full strength, which only fuels the excitement. It is rare for a NBA regular season to have true juice prior to the game in November. And they’re the top two teams in the East standings.

Toronto on Thursday should also be fun (even if Kawhi Leonard remains out) followed by a Sunday matinee against the Pacers, this time in Philadelphia. It’ll be the first leg of the always adventurous back-to-back games.

Stat of the Week

This is an easy one. I had a work trip in San Antonio. I travel maybe once a year. The conference location is scheduled years in advance so I knew about this one for a while. The NBA schedule, however, isn’t released until August each year. So I had to wait to see if attending a Spurs game in person was possible. Fortunately, the Spurs played at home. And of course I bought a ticket. I sat in Section 103, Row 30. A decent view. Victor Wembanyama marveled. His three-block sequence late in the second quarter was sensational. It never gets old watching how teams attack the Spurs whenever Wembanyama is on the bench. Eyes light up. A player turning the corner can actually go towards the basket with a legitimate goal of scoring a basket. The inverse is true with Wembanyama patrolling the paint. It is like watching Shrek protecting his swamp. Good luck.

He made only one three on eight attempts. He missed crucial free throws that would have added to his point total. And yet. The Mavericks couldn’t guard him so they fouled him. It made sense as he kept adding points, rebounds and blocks that only one player ever had a similar game.

Only Wilt Chamberlain has had more points in a game with eight blocks.

Only Wilt Chamberlain, Elgin Baylor, and Bob Petit have had more points in a game with 24 rebounds.

Only Wilt Chamberlain has had a game scoring at least 52 points, 24 rebounds, and eight blocks (and he needed overtime, although Wilt finished with 17 blocks!)

Next year’s conference is in Phoenix. Here’s to the Spurs playing the Suns in early November.

Feel swell, friends!