What is the story about?
Man, it would have been nice to steal that one.
The Sixers fell to the San Antonio Spurs 115-102 Monday night.
They are now 43-36 and have again dropped a half game below the sixth seed in the East.
Joel Embiid clearly with some extra juice for this matchup, led the Sixers with 34 points and 12 rebounds shooting 8-of-20 from the floor. Tyrese Maxey struggled mightily, finishing with 15 points and eight assists on six-of-16 shooting. Paul George opened the game on another heater and ended with 16 points going
five-of-15 from the floor.
VJ Edgecombe had 14 points and eight rebounds on six-of-15 shooting. Victor Wembanyama had 17 points, five rebounds, and three blocks before being ruled out after halftime with a rib contusion. Stephon Caslte led the Spurs with 19.
Cam Payne (hamstring) and Johni Broome (knee) were the Sixers out due to injury.
Here are some thoughts at the buzzer.
First Quarter
- On the Spurs’ second possession of the game Embiid got up to block a Wembanyama layup attempt, but got rolled over in the process of landing. He played the opening minutes of the game but was really laboring through it. He was favoring his knee, but didn’t leave the bench at the first timeout called.
- Despite the looming existential threat, the Sixers were off to another excellent offensive start thanks to PG. He nailed all three of his threes on his way to an 11-point quarter, keeping the Sixers ahead as the Spurs got going. Embiid had still managed to hold them to a 1-of-6 start with two turnovers.
- Still looking rather hobbled, Embiid checked back in after four minutes of rest and got on the board with a jumper set up by a Maxey pocket pass. That initially put the Sixers up five, but replay would show that Kelly Oubre Jr.’s foot was on the sideline to negate the three-pointer he had made. That timeout put a half in the Sixers’ momentum — a turnover and a blocked shot giving the Spurs fast breaks. After shooting 54% from the field in the first, the Spurs led by one.
Second Quarter
- The physicality of this game only picked up when George and Wembanyama each tagged each other pretty hard. George took quite a bonk to the head and almost definitely should have drawn a foul on his layup that was blocked. He was whistled though for getting Wemby in the side pretty good, a hard foul that had him take a breather as well.
- Embiid’s early rest allowed him to play all of the second. He settled in offensively, putting up 16 in the quarter. He definitely felt more comfortable in the moment as his jumper continued to fall. He attempted the off the backboard lob to himself after beating Wemby on a pump fake. It wasn’t the cleanest lob off the glass and Wemby recovered enough to foul him. He capped off what was becoming quite a duel between the two with this stepback.
- Edgecombe had another reserved start, but he became one of the few Sixers other than Embiid to make a field goal in the quarter. Maxey on the other hand wasn’t able to do so. He did have seven assists to only two turnovers but went 0-of-5 in a scoreless first half. The Spurs led by seven at the half.
Third Quarter
- It turned out to be more than a breather for Wembanyama as the Spurs started the second half without him. He was ruled out with a rib contusion. If he misses another game he won’t be able to qualify for All-NBA or awards. If there’s one thing that will get the 65-game ruled tweaked or revoked it’ll be that guy being accolade-less in a couple of years.
- The Sixers took advantage of the momentum, starting the half on an 11-2 run. Maxey finally got on the board when by getting to the line before George and Embiid set each other up for threes. A quick three in response followed by a bad Maxey turnover helped the Spurs respond instantly with a 10-0 run of their own.
- Maxey finally hit a three for his first field goal of the night. That was his only shot attempt of his six-minute shift. The offense was stagnant in trying to compensate. Edgecombe had his midrange pull-up falling but was cold from deep — albeit a good chunk of his three-point attempts were grenades.
- Both offenses had gotten stuck in the mud. San Antonio went over four minutes without scoring. The Sixers could only incrementally eat into the lead, with a pair of Embiid free throws here and dunker find to Dominick Barlow there. Maxey looked a bit better checking back in, going 1-of-2 on a pair of floaters and hitting a difficult layup. Barlow faked a dribble hand-off to get an open dunk but missed it, and the Spurs ran out to get an open three off the miss. Barlow was able to get a prayer of a three up just before the buzzer, but it cruelly rimmed out, keeping the Sixers in a seven-point deficit.
Fourth Quarter
- Maxey got the rim for a layup on the Sixers’ first possession of the quarter but again, it didn’t unlock his level of aggression. It would be almost another four minutes before his next shot. Defensively the Sixers’ opponent was taking an extraordinarily amount of attempts at the rim. Per Cleaning the Glass, the Spurs had taken 45% of their shots from that range to this point in the game.
- After sitting the first four and a half minutes, Embiid checked back into a 12-point deficit. He got to the line of his first possession back, but the barrage of jumpers the Sixers had settled into were not falling enough to close the deficit.
- Embiid broke up a spell of three contested jumpers, driving to the paint and getting fouled. He was only able to split the pair at the line and that basically sealed the Sixers fate. After a quick layup, the Sixers won possession back when the ball went out of bounds via a challenge, but Maxey turned it over coming out of the review. Castle stripped Embiid and finished the fast break layup to make sure of it.
