PHILADELPHIA -- No dramatic comeback was needed on Saturday as the Philadelphia 76ers handled their business with a 127-116 win over the Milwaukee Bucks at home. The Sixers improved to 3-0 on the season and sent the Bucks to 0-3 despite not having LeBron James on the front end of a back-to-back as they continue to grow and improve as a team.
Joel Embiid led the way with 28 points, 11 rebounds, and 10 assists while Jaylen Brown added 27 points. Tyrese Maxey had 26 points and four assists, VJ Edgecombe had 17 and 12 rebounds, and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope added 12 huge points and some strong defense off the bench.
Here are the three biggest takeaways following the win:
Embiid's playmaking
The Sixers are a team filled with so many proven scorers and having somebody like
Embiid who can fill it up, but also find ways to make plays for others and get his teammates involved, is a huge plus for this team. He picked apart the Bucks with his passing as he was almost like a quarterback out on the floor. He was making sure his teammates were in the right spots, he was hitting guys backdoor, he found easy looks for shooters to catch-and-shoot opportunities, he was running DHOs on the perimeter, and it made life easier for everybody around him. Sure, the 11 rebounds were huge on a night the Sixers were out-rebounded 62-40, but the big fella's playmaking is what really stood out.
"Reading stuff early on, not waiting," Maxey said of Embiid's passing. "And then when he got that rebound at the end of the game and didn’t want to pass me the ball, pretty much (he smiled) but other than that, he’s making reads, like, crisp. He’s making them very quickly. And I think the connection that we have as far as just our two-man game and all the other backdoors and stuff. He’s trying to get the connection with Ant (Anfernee Simons), too, because we’re gonna need Ant. Ant’s gonna make some big shots for us."
Caldwell-Pope doing it all
The final stat line will read 12 points on 4-for-6 shooting from deep along with two rebounds and three steals, but he was also a plus-24 in 28 minutes off the bench. Caldwell-Pope was such a huge part of this win as he found ways to contribute and make plays that don't show up in the box score. He took some bumps and bruises as well, but still fought through all of that to make sure he was able to help the Sixers and teammates certainly noticed after his strong effort.
"Yeah, and again, big thing, two-way player, man," said coach Nick Nurse. "He really sprints the floor, gives us some spacing in transition, knocked down that three. But he kind of did the, he kind of came in to take (Tyler) Herro, and Herro was kind of going there a little bit. He came in and did a nice job, and then we kind of started matching them. Herro came out, and Herro came back in. KCP came back in, so that was, again, he's done that a couple games now, giving us a huge lift defensively."
Edgecombe's 3-point volume
After combining for seven 3-point attempts over the first two games of the season, Edgecombe put up 10 against the Bucks and knocked down five of them. The Sixers are going to need the second-year guard to launch somewhere around 7-to-10 triples a night. That's just the way the league is and it's important to have volume 3-point shooters who can knock it down with efficiency. He's going to have so many real opportunities to knock down those open looks within this ecosystem because of the talent around him. This will have to continue as time moves forward.
"He’s a good shooter," Nurse said of Edgecombe. "I think, again, it's not going to be that way every night, but tonight – depending on how teams are playing, he's probably going to have some looks. They’re going to be pulled off to try to plug some of the lanes for Tyrese, Joel, Jaylen, those guys. So he's probably going to get some opportunities. I like the confidence. There was no hesitation. So that's the way you can make them. If you feel like you can make them and you step right into them, that's a good start."
This article originally appeared on Sixers Wire: 3 biggest takeaways for short-handed Sixers following win over Bucks
