Instant observations: Sixers ride 80-point first half to win over Raptors

Tyrese Maxey led the Sixers in a first-half beatdown of the Raptors, with the 76ers eventually crawling to a 115-102 win after a slow second half. Philadelphia had 80 points in the first two quarters, with Maxey (33 points), Joel Embiid (27 points), and VJ Edgecombe (15 points) leading the way for the visitors.

Here’s what I saw.

A first-half barrage

The Sixers had an immaculate first quarter to open Monday’s follow-up with the Raptors, a breath of fresh air after the offensive disaster they turned in without Joel Embiid and Paul George on Sunday. After the first 12 minutes, the Sixers were:

• 14/17 from the field
• 7/8 from three
• 10/10 from the line

I think that’s pretty good. They scored a whopping 45 points in the opening period, four points off their highest single-quarter mark in franchise history, and the Raptors’ fans had all but given up on this game before the halfway mark of the second quarter had hit. The man who got them started was, of course, Tyrese Maxey. He had to grind out 38 points against Toronto a night prior, barreling into a wall of defenders in and around the paint while hitting difficult shot after difficult shot.

It was a much different story in the follow-up, with the Raptors suddenly forced to pay attention to Joel Embiid and Paul George alongside the other Sixers starters. Embiid set some bone-crushing screens for Maxey in dribble handoffs, and their synergy has been absolutely off the charts over the last few weeks, with Embiid doing an excellent job of waiting out defenders when necessary to hit his speedy running mate at the right time. Maxey also made a lot of difficult work look easy on Monday night — hitting threes coming off of a handoff at full speed is far more difficult than he makes it look, but his range started from halfcourt against Toronto, with Embiid making sure most of his looks came from much closer.

The end of the first quarter has been a spot to get Maxey a rare bit of rest for much of this season, but he was on such a roll that Nurse hardly thought about pulling him, watching as he hit a baseline turnaround, a stepback jumper, and a pull-up three in the closing minutes of the first. And Maxey was so hot to open the game that it seemed to spread like wildfire throughout the roster. Even deep bench role players like Jabari Walker were able to shake off a 0/4 night on Sunday to nail his first triple of the game, padding the lead early.

(Is it a coincidence that they had their best offensive half of the season with Maxey posting exactly 0 assists? Perhaps not. Weaponizing Maxey as an off-ball scorer while allowing Edgecombe to assert himself at point and Embiid to quarterback from the middle of the floor takes some of the best bits from all three men in the trio.)

When it was all said and done, Maxey got his inevitable 30-ball while being surprisingly uninvolved for most of the second half, popping up just enough along the way to push back against Toronto runs and keep a comfortable distance between the two teams. He got to play cheerleader for Kyle Lowry for the final minutes of the fourth quarter, which was the best thing he earned all night.

A big-time response from Edgecombe

VJ Edgecombe owned a huge share of the blame for Philadelphia’s Sunday evening loss, unable to capitalize as the Raptors threw waves of defenders and pressure at Tyrese Maxey. He was a streaky shooter at Baylor, and every time he has a down night you wonder if perhaps we’re in store for an extended shooting slump. After all, he’s a rookie and is only just beginning to create his track record.

But this isn’t just any rookie. Edgecombe was lights out against Toronto in the follow-up game, knocking down a pair of spot-up threes before getting a whole lot more adventurous as an on-ball scorer. After watching him clang jumper after jumper on Sunday evening, the Raptors apparently decided they were okay conceding space to him coming off of ball screens. While Edgecombe is still figuring things out as a pull-up threat, he has no fear of attacking a dropping defender, and he hit a couple of big-time threes against sinking coverage on Tuesday.

One of the most interesting developments of this recent stretch has been Edgecombe taking more on-ball responsibilities from Maxey in early offense, getting into two-man game with Embiid or playing floor general as the Sixers run Maxey through a maze of ball screens. Without trying to beat the comparison into the ground, I think you can see flashes of what the Jimmy Butler/Joel Embiid ball-screen actions looked like way back in 2019. Edgecombe has a lot of the low dribbling, change-of-pace manipulation that Butler used to probe the defense and eventually kick the ball back for an open Embiid jumper, though he obviously has to refine his finishing and foul-drawing ability to be in Butler’s territory out of the pick-and-roll.

So Embiid is really dunking again, I guess

“Seven-footer dunks ball” ranks up there with “area man eats breakfast” in the chart of most surprising things, but Joel Embiid is not a normal seven-footer. We’re talking about a player who has actively avoided jumping at times and was coached to fall more (and fall thoughtfully) to protect his lower extremities from further damage.

A year after we saw the slowest, most timid version of Embiid there has ever been, he is turning heads with his explosiveness and fluidity over the last few weeks. A one-handed dunk in traffic is a major change, no matter who was waiting there at the rim, and Embiid has not looked this confident in his body in years.

The skeptic would point out that the playoffs remain a long way away, which is fair, and that he got to battle an army of players that are too small on Monday, which I will push back on. At his worst last season, Embiid lacked the confidence and polish to punish almost any mismatch, even players that he had historically dominated from the elbows and in. So while he doesn’t deserve any sort of parade for making it look easy against a forward-sized guy like Collin Murray-Boyles, I love seeing the ruthlessness of younger Embiid emerge in this wiser but creakier version of the big man.

One caveat: Embiid was too sloppy with the basketball for my liking, treating possessions in the post too casually while knowing he had the size and skill to win a majority of the battles against CMB and Scottie Barnes. It feels greedy to demand more on a night where they were so far out in front for most of the night, but I wouldn’t ask for or expect it if I didn’t think it was within him.

Other notes

— I had no interest in mid-game minutes for Kyle Lowry, but his fourth-quarter entrance was a hell of a moment. Well-deserved.

— The third-quarter Sixers are back (derogatory). I don’t think there was much more to the second-half swoon than the very cliché “game of runs” stuff you’ll probably hear from the players after the victory. They played their version of prevent offense in the final quarter and a half, playing slow and slightly careless hoops, but it’s also just difficult to sustain the level of play they hit in the first 24 minutes.

— Starting to feel like Jabari Walker needs to play more minutes. Good things have been happening almost every time he touches the floor lately, and he brings a tenacity off the bench that they apparently need to sustain early momentum.