Sixers ‘Win’ Tanking Battle vs. Utah Jazz

Sixers tried their best but couldn’t surpass Utah Jazz in a fight for tank positioning and win Sunday’s match 126-122 behind 25 points each for Lonnie Walker and Quentin Grimes.

Here’s what I saw.

The good

-Quentin Grimes has not been crucible while playing the main guard for Philadelphia, but despite his push for a big money contract in the summer, he plays pretty firm within the framework of the offense. It is a good mix of chasing his shot and putting the table to others, which is well bodied with his future on a healthier version of this team.

Frankly, Grimes could probably have gone out and taken 30 shots if he wanted to, with Utah, who played poor attack defense and with very little help at the edge due to Walker Kessler’s absence. Instead, he continued to choose his spots effectively and scored almost by will, while finding teammates for open triangles every time Utah decided to load him on the interior. He fits both Maxey and McCain, whether it is to serve as a outlets or allow them to move and manipulate away from the ball.

And hey, like a bonus, he was one of the few guys in the starting lineup who showed some desire to play defense!

-Sixers got two very good performances from Jared Butler and Lonnie Walker IV on Sunday night, which is funny in a messy way when you consider how many games they might have swung to their advantage this season with even semi-composition from a backup guard. In any case, both guys took advantage of porous defense from Utah and drove to the basket every time they wanted it for most of the last 2.5 quarters.

Walker seems to have come alive after an ultra-loving start to his Sixers Embed period, and who can blame him for the slow adjustment to NBA speed and a smaller NBA role? With some room to experiment and play through mistakes, Walker has found his foot and shown the blinks from a fun scoring guard out of the bench. He took Drummonds Plads in the starting lineup to open the second half, and with yabusele in the middle and hectare of space to play in, he was a thorn in Utah’s side for most of the second half.

A piece of encouraging and surprising news-Butler played some pretty damn good defense on ball in this one, either directly causing a turnover or playing enough pressure to lead to a turnover of several first half possession. He has some serious restrictions at that end as a result of his size, but the desire to compete is there and it will give him a shot to hang.

– This is the kind of team Adem Bona is built to play against. Utah doesn’t have sharp enough passers-by to cut you up with the slash-and-kick game, and their downhill players are missing a veteran’s know-how when they get to the paint. Keyonte George and Isaiah Collier can get to the edge, but they will probably make it pretty obvious that the ball goes up. Go into Philadelphia’s Young Shot Blocker, there are games to challenge you when he thinks you will even give him a chance to block a shot.

Bona is still not ready for primetime against the good teams, but he could be the difference between victories and losses against the other teams at the bottom of the position. First, he is able to move his feet and slip with a guard on a switch that sets him apart from both other drummond and Guerschon Yabusele (and Gulp, compromised Joel Embiid). Bona has a lot of work to do as a big one in drop schemes, but you can change him fairly freely as long as he doesn’t commit silly range violations. He is an excellent athlete and clearly puts pride in playing defense.

I also think this season has shown that Bona is not as raw on offense as we thought to come in. He has shown increased comfort in a variety of actions, and he begins to learn the nuances of pick-and-rolls when he goes together — when he has to slide a screen how hard he can get rid of making a choice

– Alex Reese has been pretty good in limited minutes, but not necessarily in the ways I would have expected when they signed him. He is invoiced as something like a stretch of four on 6’9 ″ with well over touch, but he has been surprisingly effective as a dirty worker. Reese has emerged to take charges, pull down the occasional offensive rebound and even get some work done as an off-ball cutter. His instincts have been pretty good for a guy who is new to the system and his teammates.

– For all his shortcomings, Ricky Council IV basically always Responds after taking a trip down to G-League to get minutes/reps and rediscover themselves. He still has Lots of warts on display against Utah, but he knocked down a few triangles and played mostly effective basketball. No sulking, no pouting, just hanger.

The bad

– I really feel that I spiralize in madness and regain every single game from this season. Trying to analyze this toilet bowl is an exercise in useless. Which forward analysis should I offer to see Jared Butler and Lonnie Walker, who light up the bench on a 15-48 jazz team? Making the paint with numbers “This happened, then it happened, this happened” Summary is boring like hell and I won’t do it, no sir.

The ugly

-Giving up 30+ points in a quarter to this Utah Jazz team is a tanking -that I can hardly see. Jazz is terrible with Their starters were available and their wounded list was so long Sunday night that when you combined it with Sixers, it took more than a whole page on a PDF. Impressive, if not for its influence on Sixers trying to run to the bottom.

Even Philly still managed to let Utah Waltz to the edge and bomb away from three in the first 10 minutes of the game. Kyle Filipowski looked like the boss in a wing over Cuckoo’s Nest, running edge to edge with his hands in the air to deposit lightly two-point curve over and over again. Philadelphia lost inclusion on pick-and-rolls and pick-and-pops boats, and was in losing with double digits to one of the only teams in the league tanks harder than they are. A spectacular lack of giving a damn from all five guys on the floor early.

Other drummonds, however, were probably the worst of them all. He failed to close space, failed to protect the edge and failed to rebound. Adem Bona checked in and immediately Changed the tenor in the game by simply playing hard. It doesn’t require much and it brings up an important point. Sixers may have better “name” players and guys you want to have next to their big three if they tried to win, but if you are a bad team down the stretch I would choose them to lose before I would most of the young and worse teams.

The young teams like Utah will be pretty bad themselves, but the schedule is filled with guys who are out to prove themselves and build a name in the league. Philly has a few guys like that, a few more guys with future contracts to think about, but they also have a decent collection of veterinarians responsible for playing, checked hangers in the next month. Apathy is a strong component of a tank struggle.

Still, Drummond sat the whole other half and he had an excuse to fight because he played through illness to be available. Either he or they must have decided that it was time to call it ceasing at the break and I do not blame him. May have helped the thought of causing him to stay on the floor, of course …

– Anyone who wants to go to full reconstruction mode may want to look at this Utah Jazz team and season before traveling back that way. Everyone will be Oklahoma City, but many teams will probably end up more like Utah, with a few lovely players (when they are healthy) and a whole lot of junk, in search of a team driving star to change their fortunes.

– Since basketball doesn’t matter right now, this is a good testing space for a wider Sixers theory I have. Part of the reason they are doomed to fail is that they fail the Ninja Turtles test.

Most successful groups/teams include personality types that widely fit into the turtle bar types: Leonardo (Type A/Leader), Michaelangelo (Funny Guy), Donatello (Tech Guy/Brains), Rapheal (Hard Ass). Sixers has two obvious candidates to fill two roles among their leaders. Tyrese Maxey is very obviously a Leonardo, which is filled with cliches on press conferences and (by election and by default) that leads the team on the floor. Joel Embiid is Mikey, the class clown, which is the superpower when he locks in, but who needs the seriousness of a few of his brothers.

But they certainly lack the harsh charge, cross -border insane raphael, who often frustrates his other brothers, but ultimately falls in line and helps lead them forward with his personality power. They too had Their Donatello in Nic Batum, though they did not lose him due to lack of attempts. Without half of what causes a group of personalities to work, they swim upstream without any chance of beating the flow.

Still, it’s all to say that Jimmy Butler is a much better fit than Paul George, in this essay I will …

– Nick Nurse is clearly not on board with the idea of ​​the challenge he made in the last five seconds of the game. Organizational Malpractice.