Give Myles Turner credit. The guy knows when to pick his spots. One day after raising eyebrows with some confident comments about his looming matchup with Joel Embiid, the Pacers big man did not back down. He walked out to the half-court circle, went toe-to-toe with his opponent, and won the opening tip ... over Tony Bradley.
If you experienced a power surge around the same time, it might have been the cumulative effect of a thousand Nielsen boxes simultaneously switching over to the Weather Channel. The Sixers’ decision to rest Embiid might have qualified as a business decision, but the only business that benefited was its own. What was supposed to be a decisive matchup between two of the best teams in the Eastern Conference turned out to be a wild come-from-behind win that either told us everything or nothing about the Sixers.
The final score says that this was a moment of progress, and maybe that’s what it was. In a 119-110 victory over the Pacers, the Sixers rallied from 20 points down to win without Joel Embiid for the first time all season. They did so in large part because of some clutch crunch-time scoring from Tobias Harris and Furkan Korkmaz, who combined to score 19 of the Sixers’ 37 points in a fourth quarter that began with them trailing by 13.
In addition to giving the Sixers their first win in five tries with Embiid inactive, they allow us to ask a question that for most of the night had been flipped on its head. Is it possible that the Sixers have the second scorer they are going to need in the postseason in the form of the resurgent Harris?
All-or-nothing is a precarious way to build a contender. The Sixers know this: Doc Rivers, Daryl Morey, even Embiid — all of them understood the implications of the 0-4 record in games without Embiid that they carried into the night. They understand what the on-off splits say about their performance. It’s why the Sixers made their play for James Harden, it’s why you can’t rule out another big-game expedition before the March 25 trade deadline.
For now, what Morey and Rivers have to hope is that Sunday night’s win offered a sustainable blueprint. While Ben Simmons drew postgame raves from Rivers about his aggression against an exploitable Pacers defense, the primary reason the Sixers walked away with the victory were a series of hero ball possessions from Harris.
Of all of the improvements that the new coaching staff has coaxed from this team, Harris’ resurgence as a primary scorer might sit at the top. Against the Pacers, the veteran forward showed the same mix of confidence, comfort and aggression that has vaulted him into All-Star consideration this season. Along with a series of clutch fourth-quarter pull-ups from Korkmaz, Harris’ ability to shoulder the scoring load was nothing short of decisive for a team that increasingly looks like it is going to need to put up serious points whenever their star big man is on the bench.
“You’ve seen it a couple times now, fourth-quarter comebacks, fourth quarter execution down the stretch of games,” Rivers said. We have a long way to go, but just the growth of this team down the stretch of games — that’s how you’re gonna win playoff games.”
As Morey himself indicated last week when he labeled the Sixers mindset “championship or bust,” the playoffs are the measure by which this team will be judged. Regular-season victories are great, but what matters is what they portend for the postseason.
Sunday night was one of those nights that seemed made for Simmons. From a numbers standpoint, it counts as progress. He scored a season-high 21 points and made 9 of 12 shots, one of them from 17 feet. In his three previous games without Embiid, Simmons had totaled 37 points on 13-of-26 shooting.
As usual, Sunday night featured some flashes of the player the Sixers — in their current form — need Simmons to be. He scored eight of his 21 points in a stretch of 1:37 at the end of the first half. He had an emphatic dribble-drive dunk late in the third quarter. He opened up a slew of scoring opportunities while forcing double teams off the drive. It may not have been dominant, but it was a solid effort.
“I thought all night, his pace was really good for us,” Harris said. “He just controlled the pace of the game.”
But to win an NBA title in this day and age, you need 1A and 1B, not Batman and Robin. There are exceptions, and maybe the Sixers will prove to be one. But when you look at the Lakers with LeBron James and Anthony Davis, and the Clippers with Kawhi Leonard and Paul George, and the Nets with Kevin Durant, James Harden, and Kyrie Irving, you see teams that give opponents multiple mismatches that they must account for.
With Simmons making his mark mostly as a facilitator even in games like Sunday’s, the question is whether Harris might be the big-game scorer that the postseason will inevitably demand. He finished with 27 points on 10-of-19 shooting and single-handedly won a number of possessions.
“It’s not rocket science, we’re a better team with Joel on the floor, but on the nights that he does have to rest his body, we have to figure out our flow, Harris said. “Tonight was a good step toward that.”
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