Pros and Cons: Sixers vs. Hornets
The second of two games in Charlotte.
Adam Aaronson, whose legal name is Sixers Adam (@SixersAdam on Twitter), covers the Sixers for The Rights To Ricky Sanchez. He believes cantaloupe is the best food in existence, and is brought to you by the Official Realtor of The Process, Adam Ksebe.
After an overtime win against Charlotte on Monday night, the Sixers faced the Hornets again tonight, looking to sweep the two-game set. Here’s what stood out to me tonight:
Pro: Andre Drummond shines
After an excellent start to the season, Drummond’s production has had some ebbs and flows to it over the last month or so. But he’s still a very high-caliber backup center, and that showed tonight.
In his first half minutes alone, Drummond made a flurry of big plays, putting up eight points, four rebounds, two assists and two steals in 10 minutes. He was the anchor of a bench lineup that gave the Sixers a massive boost in the first half.
He impacted the game in as many ways as you can hope for: he protected the rim effectively, scored around the rim, knocked down his free throws, and threw down multiple alley-oops.
There’s never been much doubt that Drummond would be a clear upgrade over Dwight Howard, but tonight’s performance from the big man was particularly impressive.
Con: Isaiah Joe gets a DNP-CD
On Monday night, Joe gave the Sixers a nice lift during his brief run, knocking down three shots from beyond the arc and playing solid defense.
But with Tyrese Maxey back from his illness, Doc Rivers opted to not give Joe any minutes. Wanting to play guys like Matisse Thybulle and Furkan Korkmaz over Joe makes sense on the surface, but in my view this was a time where Joe needed to continue seeing the floor.
After an impressive preseason, Joe struggled early in the regular season. Far too often he seemed passive -- and given that nearly all of his on-court value is derived from his three-point shooting, that is a major issue.
On Monday, though, Joe did not look hesitant at all. He was just the opposite, assertive and aggressive. I would have liked to see him get a chance to continue playing with that mindset, hopefully getting him in a rhythm and eventually leading to his return to the regular rotation. But for now, it looks like Joe will only reenter the rotation if an injury occurs.
Pro: Joel Embiid gets the right touches
This season, Embiid has had the ball as much as ever, but many of those touches have come in the wrong places.
Someone with Embiid’s size, strength and physicality should frequently see the ball around the rim. Early on this season, his rim frequency decreased to an alarming extent.
This issue wasn’t just about Embiid, though. He could be a bit more assertive in getting paint touches, sure, but the bigger issue at hand has been the rest of the team’s struggles when it comes to adequately spacing the floor and then executing properly on post entry passes.
Tonight, these problems did not appear. The Sixers were able to get their big man deep touch after deep touch, and he made it count by nearly putting Charlotte’s entire frontcourt rotation into foul trouble, en route to a ridiculous 19 free throw attempts in the game. This is a development that can take Embiid’s offense close to the level it was at last season, even if his mid-range numbers don’t quite catch up.