Regular Season Bell Ringer Standings:
Tyrese Maxey – 1.5
Jaylen Brown – 0.5
The Sixers are 3-0 to start the season after taking down the Milwaukee Bucks 127-116 on Saturday night.
This was the first game of the first back-to-back of the season for Philadelphia. LeBron James was ruled out for this contest early on for sciatica management. This being the first back-to-back means that we’re still slowly figuring out exactly what the Sixers are planning in terms of resting the likes of LeBron and possibly
Embiid, who played in Saturday’s contest. Perhaps they’ll always stagger them, or perhaps it will be a case-by-case basis depending on the opponents faced in each set of consecutive contests. With Embiid’s status for Sunday’s contest still up in the air, we just have to wait and see.
But, back to tonight. The Bucks, the consensus underdogs, were not taking this as a loss laying down. They put up a fight and took advantage of the opportunities the Sixers continued to give them at points throughout this one, even taking the lead for a lot of the second frame. It was, overall, a lot harder of a battle than maybe it appeared it would be on paper pregame, but that’s the nature of the NBA. The important thing is that players like Joel Embiid, Jaylen Brown, Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe went to work to regain control of the game in the Sixers’ favor by time the fourth quarter rolled around. The Sixers wavered a bit, but held on to take down the Bucks.
Let’s get to the Bell Ringer.
Joel Embiid: 28 points, 11 rebounds, 10 assists, 1 steal
It didn’t take long for Joel Embiid to warm up in this one. In fact, the big fella was involved in every facet, filling up the stat sheet, right off the tip. Through the first six minutes of the game, he had already amassed six points, three rebounds and two assists. Between hitting his jumpers and constantly drawing fouls, Embiid was pretty much able to do whatever he wanted on offense. Thank goodness too, because there were a few times no one else from Philadelphia could do much of anything.
But speaking of his teammates, Embiid was an absolute playmaker for the Sixers tonight — especially important on a night without LeBron James’ facilitation. You can see Embiid working patiently to pull in a help defender to allow him to kick out to an open teammate, he’s setting up huge screens to create space for guys like Tyrese Maxey to pull up, and he’s just hitting some really great passes (sometimes with a flair for the dramatic, for style points).
Embiid finished with a floor-leading 28 points to go with 11 rebounds and 10 assists for the triple-double. He also had one steal.
Jaylen Brown: 27 points, 3 rebounds, 5 assists, 3 steals
Something that is quickly becoming evident about Jaylen Brown is he just seems to show up when his team needs him to the most. In the Cavs game, that came in the form of three huge buckets as the Sixers mounted their comeback. Tonight, it was with two big triples and eight points in the second to help the Sixers break out of an ice cold streak that allowed the Bucks to take the lead out from under them. After putting up 16 points in the first two quarters, Brown was a floor-leading +18… not bad considering the Sixers led by just four at the break.
It’s not just about Brown’s ability to create shots for himself in isolation. It’s that he also shoots incredibly well and is creating opportunities for his teammates at the same time. Add that to Brown’s well-known impact on the defensive end, and the former Celtic continues to show exactly why his addition to the squad was such a massive one for this franchise.
Brown finished Saturday with 27 points, 3 rebounds, 5 assists and 3 steals.
Tyrese Maxey: 26 points, 4 rebounds, 4 assists
It is truly incredible what Tyrese Maxey is able to do on the offensive end of a basketball court. It’s even more incredible what he’s able to accomplish when he has just a bit of space to operate in.
Working especially with Joel Embiid, Maxey was able to find a ton of pockets of space tonight within which to create good looks for himself. But let’s be real, they don’t even really need to be the easiest shot opportunities for Maxey to make something out of nothing. This was yet another night of Maxey finishing out the easy buckets, hitting his jumpers, and making a few fantastic finishes that make you wonder how in the world he does it. He shot well from long range (4-for-9) and was just consistently chipping in points for Philadelphia — which was incredibly important against a Bucks team that was not giving up and kept biting back with buckets of their own.
Maxey finished the night with 26 points, 4 rebounds and 4 assists.
VJ Edgecombe: 17 points, 12 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals and 1 block
VJ Edgecombe has been open about still finding his spot on this new-look Sixers offense. Tonight was a great glimpse of what it can be. It doesn’t always have to be finishing through contact at the rim or his high flying, acrobatic dunks. It can, in fact, be waiting patiently for the right opportunities to pull up for the jumper. Tonight, he got a lot of those opportunities, and took full advantage, sinking 5-of-10 attempts from long range.
Frankly, even if he had a terrible game otherwise, sinking that many triples for a Sixers franchise that so often goes ice cold from long range would earn a nomination. But it wasn’t a terrible game otherwise. Edgecombe continues to be a monster on the boards, pulling in 12 for the double-double tonight. He is also putting a ton of effort into finding ways to be truly disruptive on the defensive end (which is probably a big part of why he got himself into a bit of foul trouble tonight, but I digress).
His best sequence, in fact, involved him scoring zero points, but making a hell of a lot happen for Philadelphia, including securing the victory for the home team.
His offensive game with this roster will take time to fall into place, but tonight was a great sign of things to come for Edgecombe. VJ finished the night with 17 points, 12 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals and 1 block.
