Sixers\u2019 loss the Cavs<\/a>. He was awfully strong as a very versatile starting forward against Toronto.\u00a0<\/p>\nThe Sixers ran tons of pitch actions with Watford on the court in the first quarter. Their perimeter players were often able to get a downhill head of steam off of both dribble handoffs and fake handoffs. Watford\u2019s ability to read the defense and react sharply was a major help.<\/p>\n
He posted 11 points on 5-for-6 shooting, three rebounds (two offensive) and two assists in the first period.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Stars lead Sixers\u2019 push back\u00a0<\/p>\n
Despite that big run, the Sixers still had a rough overall start defensively. Toronto poured in 43 first-quarter points and had a 10-point advantage after 12 minutes.<\/p>\n
The Raptors went up 51-37 early in the second quarter on a Ja\u2019Kobe Walter corner three. They began a scorching 10 for 12 beyond the arc.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ultimately, Toronto\u2019s shooters cooled off and the Sixers\u2019 defense was much better in the second quarter. Embiid also played good, aggressive basketball in his second stint. A Watford high-low feed set Embiid up for a layup that cut the Sixers\u2019 deficit to two points. Eventually, a short jumper from Kelly Oubre Jr. (19 points) gave the Sixers a 58-56 edge.\u00a0<\/p>\n
With Embiid sitting, Maxey was stellar late in the second quarter. His lefty scoop layup with 1.9 seconds left in the first half put the Sixers up 68-63.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Saving Embiid for the home stretch <\/p>\n
Sixers head coach Nick Nurse used five players off the bench. Surprisingly, Jared McCain was not among them. The second-year guard was available to play (with limited minutes) for the second time since returning from a right thumb UCL tear.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Sixers\u2019 starters had a few defensive lapses early in the third quarter. Brandon Ingram\u2019s mid-range jumper knotted the game at 78-all.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Watford and Maxey then fueled a fantastic stretch. Both played zealous defense, hustling back into plays to contest and block shots. They were also in the middle of fluid, highly effective offense. Watford dished a between-the-legs assist to Maxey, whose three put the Sixers up 94-82.<\/p>\n
The Sixers fared badly with Maxey out late in the third quarter. Edgecombe had his third consecutive subpar shooting game, going 5 for 15 from the floor. A Quickley runner early in the fourth trimmed the Raptors’ deficit to 102-101.<\/p>\n
Although the Sixers made an immediate 7-0 run, Toronto hung around. Nurse saved Embiid for the final minutes, calling timeout and subbing him in with the Sixers up 119-116 and 3:16 to go.<\/p>\n
The tide swiftly turned. <\/p>\n
Edgecombe converted a driving layup, Oubre slammed in a second-chance dunk and Embiid tipped in his own miss. Handling Embiid’s minutes restriction is often tricky, but having him on the floor down the stretch tends to make plenty of sense. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Sixers brought back their black jerseys and returned to winning ways Saturday night.\u00a0 The team earned a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29058,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[5955,4794,69,1002,71,70,10793,10794,12919,12920],"class_list":["post-29057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-joel-embiid","tag-nba","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-76ers","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-sixers-analysis","tag-sixers-news","tag-sixers-observations","tag-tyrese-maxey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29057\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}