Kelly Oubre’s game-winning putback helped push the Sixers to a 102-100 win over the Boston Celtics, with Justin Edwards pouring in a team-high 22 points off the bench in a spectacular outing. Edwards was 8/9 from the field and 5/6 from three, turning in the best night of his young season.
Here’s what I saw.
Welcome back, Justin Edwards
Nobody was more in need of a good shooting night than Justin Edwards, who has been on a downward trend since last season ended. He looked overwhelmed as a lead option in Summer League and found himself out of the rotation after a disappointing preseason, but Nick Nurse could really use his size and shooting with little available help on the wing.
Edwards got the call for some first-half minutes against the Celtics, and he put together his best two-way stretch of the season. The second-year wing had a pair of threes on the right wing in the second quarter, and that was probably the least remarkable part of his opening shift, with Edwards making a couple of excellent drive-and-kick moves to create open looks for his teammates. Up until Tuesday night, Edwards had shown very little progress as a self-creator, so the flashes are a welcome sight.
Rebounding is not typically thought of as his wheelhouse, but Edwards made a few important contributions there, too. On one second-quarter possession, he skied for an offensive rebound, spotted Jabari Walker open in the corner, and Walker took the ensuing pass on a drive before dropping it off for an Andre Drummond and-one. It took good effort and a head-up mentality from Edwards to get that process started, and that permeated through his play against Boston.
Do the little things, and the big moments might just fall in your lap. All of the defense, rebounding, and effort plays in the world were not going to get this game over the line for the Sixers. So it was Philadelphia’s good fortune that Edwards caught the holy ghost as a shooter — midway through the fourth quarter, Edwards became the “any time he’s across halfcourt” target, absolutely in the zone after making eight consecutive shots to open the game. The fifth of five threes came on a beautiful-looking shot, Edwards twisting around a screen, squaring his shoulders, and bringing the Xfinity Mobile Arena to its feet:
This is, after all, a kid who made his name as a big-time scorer in Philadelphia high school hoops. In a simplified role, there has always been a belief that he would pull out of this slump. But you figured it might come on a handful of 2/4 nights, not all at once in an absolute heater on national television.
On Edwards’ lone miss of the night, a shot to try to win the game with about 10 seconds left, it was up to his wing counterpart to pick up the pieces. At the tail end of a miserable shooting night, Kelly Oubre was in the right place at the right time, sliding in for the game-winning bucket on the biggest rebound of the night:
It’s nice to get a little help from your friends.
Moving forward, Edwards’ role is really quite simple. Hit open shots, move the ball away from trouble, and contribute on the other end at at least a passable level. Sometimes it only takes one big game to get a season rolling, so hopefully this is the night Edwards needed to open his account for the year.
Third quarter woes yet again
Death, taxes, the Sixers playing like absolute crap in the third quarter. It is as inevitable as Thanos. It is miserable to watch. Why does it keep happening?
As remarkable and consistent as this issue is, I don’t think “the third quarter” is the actual problem here. I think the Sixers are probably playing a bit over their heads to start the season, so sustaining their play over the course of four quarters is difficult. Still, when you bring a 10-point lead into halftime and then find yourselves down six heading into the final period — and it’s only that close because Quentin Grimes hits a half-court shot — it certainly feels like a problem specific to the quarter.
It felt like the Sixers let the Celtics off the hook a lot with what they ran on offense. Philadelphia’s movement on offense was poor for a lot of this game, leading to a lot of possessions that brought back memories of last season, the ball moving side-to-side without forcing any meaningful mismatches or pressure. A lot of possessions wasted the first 12-14 seconds on the shot clock, forcing whoever had the ball in their hands to try to beat someone from a standstill as the clock wound down. Even if that player was Tyrese Maxey, it’s not exactly the easiest task in the world.
There’s also a thin line between allowing guys to play free and understanding the pecking order. Andre Drummond hitting the occasional corner three is a cute gimmick, but when he misses the first one he takes, that would basically be the end of him standing in the corner for me. The Sixers weaponized their bigs very far from the basket as screeners in the first meeting with Boston, and while I don’t exactly want Adem Bona playing four-on-three in space, I’m not sure why they abandoned that tactic in the two games since. Hell, try it with Trendon Watford to give Maxey and Edgecombe the longer runway, and if they trap, you have a credible ballhandler/passer to make a decision in the middle of the floor.
The young guards are struggling
I think we are at the point where we can call this a full-on slump for VJ Edgecombe, who just can’t generate any sort of positive momentum on offense. It’s a bit of a shame because he is starting to figure some things out on the defensive end, and if you could combine the player who started the year with a positive defender, you’d have yourself a genuine star.
In any case, the book on Edgecombe right now appears to be crowding him at every opportunity when he’s on the ball. The Celtics were able to dislodge him fairly easily when he made attempts to turn corners on dribble handoffs, stopping him in his tracks and forcing him to play out of the muck from the midrange. Matched up with big guards and wing-sized players for a lot of the night, Edgecombe found himself in a lot of late-clock situations with not much to do other than hoist a contested midrange, and Boston’s length bothered him, leading to a handful of jumpers that never had a chance of going in.
I think you can see the difference Joel Embiid can make for Edgecombe in the games when the big man isn’t available. Bona isn’t anything special as a screen setter, and Drummond doesn’t command anywhere near the same attention as a roller, so Edgecombe doesn’t have as much of a runway to get downhill without No. 21. For all the concern about Embiid hoovering up touches and time on the ball, his skills and screen setting remain a huge booster for the rookie.
It is, the lack of efficiency aside, a good thing that he continues to fire away despite his touch going missing. We have lived through too many Sixers prospects freezing themselves out of games (and careers) by refusing to keep attacking through the tough times. Keep after it, young man. He still hit yet another huge three in crunch time.
Elsewhere, and I don’t know if this is a hot take, but I would consider sending Jared McCain to the Blue Coats for some game reps if I were the Sixers. He is wildly off the pace on offense, seemingly unsure of himself and unable to generate any kind of separation. Teams feel very comfortable playing right up into his chest on defense, and the Celtics nearly ripped him for two different steals as he tried to cross halfcourt, a strange sight for a player who is typically secure with the basketball.
Nick Nurse is trying to get him on the floor right now, as evidenced by the fact that they threw him into the game with Edgecombe and Grimes for his first minutes of the night. The head coach has been willing to live out of small looks to try to get all their guards on the floor, and to McCain’s credit, he has been up for the challenge defensively. But it looks very clunky, and if for no other reason than conditioning, I would try to get him reps and minutes down in Delaware before the year gets away from him.
Other notes
— Edgecombe’s block in the defining stretch of the game in the fourth quarter was one of the key plays of the game. Deep in a miserable offensive night, I love that he was still engaged enough to help them get a win.
— My tolerance level for Quentin Grimes, on-ball creator, is directly tied to how the rest of the team is playing. When the offense is flowing, VJ Edgecombe is cooking, Joel Embiid is crushing inside the arc? I don’t need a whole lot of hero ball from their sixth man. On Tuesday night, suffice it to say, I needed a lot of Quentin Grimes hero ball, because this offense had nothing going aside from Tyrese Maxey.
His half-court shot to end the third quarter was one of the lone offensive highlights this game had to offer through three quarters, so enjoy it:
They do not win the game without that halfcourt prayer. #ThankYouQuentin
— Transition defense has been the negative story of Philadelphia’s season so far, dragging down what has otherwise been a pretty good half-court defense this season. They’ve had every problem under the sun, from communication to effort and everything in between. It finally perked up against Boston, with the Sixers doing well to prevent the easy looks in transition to force the Celtics to run actual offense.
Spoiler alert: Boston doesn’t have a very good offense right now. They went into halftime shooting 4/21 from three and 14/50 from the field, only sustaining their offense with repeated offensive rebounds and the occasional trip to the free-throw line. Andre Drummond and Adem Bona do very different jobs on the defensive end at the same position, but I thought each did them well — Bona showed high against ball screens and made some hellacious blocks around the rim, while Drummond was the more reliable rebounder, ending possessions to get the Sixers out and running.
— Two things that I greatly appreciate about Maxey’s start to the season: his increased trips to the free-throw line, and his willingness to really buckle down and defend in the big moments of games. Considering the offensive burden he carries night in and night out, it is not a small ask.
A bad offensive game for him on Tuesday, but he was due for one of those.
— This felt like a subpar performance from the officials. We will just say that.
