What is the story about?
At least they’re piling up wins while figuring out the offense.
The Sixers slugged out a 114-109 win over the banged-up Indiana Pacers Wednesday night.
Tyrese Maxey came alive in the fourth quarter to lead the Sixers with 27 points, adding five rebounds and four assists shooting 8-of-18 from the floor. Joel Embiid put up 21 points and 11 rebounds going 9-of-17 from the field.
LeBron James also dramatically improved in the final period, he finished with 13 points, five rebounds, and 10 assists on 5-of-12
shooting. Jaylen Brown shot 7-of-13 for 20 points and 10 rebounds. Pascal Siakam led the Pacers with 26.
Jabari Walker remained out with knee soreness, along with Dominick Barlow and Tacko Fall. The Pacers were without Tyrese Haliburton, Ivica Zubac, and T.J. McConnell.
Here are some thoughts at the buzzer.
First Quarter
- Not a pretty start for either team. The Sixers turned the ball over twice within 30 seconds then blew a switch on an inbounds to concede their first points of the game. Their offense opened the game looking stagnant. Brown, Embiid, and LeBron slowly got them on the board in the midrange.
- On their first possession coming out of the game’s first timeout, they had some movement going and got Embiid an easy basket running a pick-and-roll with James. Aside from some disinterest in Larry Nance, the Sixers opened the game fine defensively and benefitted from the Pacers starting cold as well. Indy started the game 3-of-11 from three.
- Anfernee Simons checked into the game and knocked down two three-pointers after only hitting two in his last three games. He ended up being the only Sixer to make a three in the quarter, and the only Sixer to take more than one three in the quarter.
- Despite a ticky-tacky quarter from the officials that ended with two fouls on both Embiid and Adem Bona, the Sixers closed out another lackluster offensive quarter with a 47.6% effective field goal percentage and were knotted up with this banged-up Pacers team at 25.
Second Quarter
- Despite the best efforts of those officials, there was no denying that Pacers’ two-way swingman Jalen Slawson had a LeBron-esque chase down block on James himself in transition. Indiana used an early challenge to overturn the foul originally called. Slawson might have been robbed of a block shortly after, but Brown got the points from the goaltend and drove right to the basket on the following possession.
- Kelly Oubre Jr. started the second for Indy with a three, then beat most the Sixers back for a transition layup off an inbound. The Sixers kept feeding their hot hand, Simons, for two more. His fourth three of the night banked off the backboard and rim before falling in. Maxey hit LeBron off a pick-and-roll for another jumper off the glass that capped off an 8-0 Sixers run.
- Sometimes when the Sixers have moved the ball this season, they might go one or two passes too many, but that’s a much more welcomed struggle than stagnation. Embiid might passed up a good look at a layup, but the ball eventually was kicked back to Maxey who drew a foul on his layup attempt.
- VJ Edgecombe started the game with an open three that rimmed out and just missed a big slam earlier in the second. He finally got on the board crashing the glass and putting back a missed Embiid midrange. The Sixers only missed four times from inside the arc in the second and the Sixers scored on second-chance points on two of them. A missed Embiid layup fell right to Brown for an easy 12-footer.
- The Sixers began to surrender all that momentum as the Pacers ripped off an 8-0 run, but for the third time this season they nailed an end-of-quarter heave. Edgecombe drilled a pull-up from half court to beat the buzzer, pushing them back up to a 10-point lead at the half.
Third Quarter
- After the exciting end to the first half, the Sixers opened the second very flat. They went one unsuccessful isolation attempt after another while the Pacers ripped off a 10-0 run. Nick Nurse called a timeout to stop it, but the Pacers hit a three after another missed contested midrange before the Sixers threw it away on the ensuing inbounds.
- Indiana ended up scoring 17 before the Sixers scored their first points of the half. While they didn’t just get down and go to the basket, LeBron finally got an open three to go off a drive-and-kick. Maxey, who had five points to this point, nailed another triple off a give-and-go to finally halt Indiana’s momentum.
- The first “hold your breath” moment was when LeBron bumped knees with Slawson. Those will hurt a lot more at LeBron’s age than Slawson’s. That didn’t help how much the Pacers were outrunning the Sixers. It’s their bread and butter, and the Sixers gave them plenty of ugly possessions to get out and do it.
- Brown got to the basket and drew a foul in another attempt to stop the bleeding, but took a shot to the head that bothered him in the process. It would be their final points of the third. KCP missed an open kickout, Maxey couldn’t get a clean layup off, Dean Wade picked up his fifth foul unable to stop Siakam, and Brown’s pull-up at the buzzer was long. After being outscored 32-13, they trailed by 13.
Fourth Quarter
- Oubre tried to sell a foul coming off a Maxey screen and left Simons wide open as a result. LeBron stripped him, allowing Maxey to scream down the court for a fastbreak layup. After find Simons again in the corner, LeBron was left all alone and drilled the three he took his time for, cutting the lead to five and prompting a Pacer timeout. Simons finished with 20 points on the night.
- The Sixers were lucky to have not given up any points despite giving up three offensive rebounds on the first possession coming out of the timeout. As Tim Legler was saying on ESPN’s broadcast that Embiid hadn’t gotten the ball in his sweetspot enough in the half, James hit him at the nail for a layup and the foul. Embiid then threw a great swing pass to Simons who missed the three, but after just checking back in Brown was right there to put back the miss.
- Playing off two-man actions with Embiid, Maxey got to the basket then the line to put the Sixers back in front. As the two again got Embiid on the empty side of the floor, Edgecombe cut to the middle of the floor and was fouled the floater attempt. He hit Embiid’s celebration as the big fella tried to help him up.
- Maxey found Embiid with a pocket pass to answer a pair of free throws, but once Siakam got another post hook to go to cut the Sixers’ lead to three, Nurse decided for another timeout to get LeBron out of the game. After Embiid traveled trying to secure an offensive rebound, Indy got it down to one thanks to Andrew Nembhard. Embiid was able to hit a fadeaway from the nail to quiet the crowd.
- After going three-of-four at the line, Maxey finally started to look like himself around the perimeter. He hit a stepback three, taking his time after getting free of Aaron Nesmith. The Pacers got two back at the line, but in the process of trying to get the ball out of LeBron’s hands they left Maxey open for another three.
- The Sixers looked to have this one in hand after those threes and Obi Toppin split his pair of free throws. On a scrambled inbounds play Edgecombe threw a poor pass out of bounds with 31 seconds left, plenty of time for Indy down five. They grabbed the offensive rebound off of Nesmith’s first three, but he got it back and airballed his second attempts. It was fitting that it wasn’t pretty, but the Sixers finally handled business.
