The Third Quarter Run That (Maybe) Saved the Sixers Season
Are the Sixers a new team after that third quarter?
Andrew Unterberger is a famous writer who invented the nickname 'Sauce Castillo' and is now writing for The Rights To Ricky Sanchez, as part of the 'If Not, Pick Will Convey As Two Second-Rounders' section of the site. You can follow Andrew on Twitter @AUGetoffmygold and can also read him at Billboard.
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I think at halftime, we all started doing our emotional bargaining. The Sixers had gotten out to a ten-point lead early in the second but coughed it up by the half, with our advantage at the break reduced to one Ben Simmons flagrant free throw. The Nets had hit ten threes, while Joel Embiid looked hobbled and Tobias Harris looked hopeless. We might not have conceded entirely by half, but we had to consider the looming possibility of the game -- and by extension, already being down 1-0, the series and the season -- being lost. And if so, then what? Do we suck it up, try to keep the team together and hope for better luck next year? Do we rip it all up and start all over again? Do we all pivot to full-time Clippers fandom? These were Qs we kinda had to start asking ourselves.
But then, the third quarter came. Embiid scored, and then he scored again, and then again. Harris got five free throws of two fouls and made ‘em all. Then an offensive rebound and another Embiid bucket. A Nets putback, then a reverse three-point play for J.J. Redick. A couple more Embiid free throws, a Ben Simmons steal and a score, and the Nets called timeout. And as Simmons cupped his hand to his ear heading to the bench. A.I.-style, the fans let ‘em know what we had all suddenly, unexpectedly realized: Four minutes into the third quarter, the game was already over.
To me, third quarters have always been the quarter in which the truly dominant teams separate themselves. That was the quarter in which the 2012-’13 Heat routinely laid the smack down during their 27-game winning streak, the quarter where the 73-9 Warriors of 2015-’16 started gathering the participation trophies to hand out to their opponents. It’s the quarter in which great teams, having gathered all the necessary info through the first 24, institute law and order in a cold, clinical way to leave absolutely no doubt as to which the superior of the two teams on the floor is. But it’s never really been the quarter for these Sixers -- at least not for this season, where they averaged the same number of points scored and allowed.
This, though, was as pure a third-quarter beatdown as you’ll see. You could tell by how fast it took off -- one of those in-game streaks that almost unfolds too quickly and casually for you to notice how pronounced it is. By the time Harris drew the clear-path foul on D’Angelo Russell and hit both free throws, you looked at time and score and it was absolutely stunning: “Wait… are we really up 13 already? Didn’t this quarter start like two minutes ago? And we have the ball again??” And it just kept rolling, a 21-2 stretch in a four-minute blink. It was like the entirety of the Wolves game in January -- Dario’s comeback, a 42-point blowout -- condensed to a third of a quarter. It was just undeniable.
And maybe the craziest thing about it was how, well, sustainable it felt. The Sixers scored 21 points in four minutes without hitting a single three in that stretch, or even a particularly long two: It was all dunks, layups, short jumpers and free throws. Really, the most encouraging thing about the entire Sixers performance last night -- they won 145-123, by the way -- was that they did it without ever getting particularly hot from deep, shooting a respectable-but-hardly-remarkable 9-23 from beyond. In other words, they hit fewer triples all game than the Nets hit in the first half, and they still got to reduce pretty much the entire fourth to garbage time. Encouraging stuff.
Everyone participated in the fun, too. J.J. had that backwards and-one (a tech and then a jumper) and helped deny Joe Harris from ever getting a clean look for Brooklyn. Tobias finally came to life with those five free throws, which helped get his jumper and overall scoring game back on track later in the quarter. Jimmy Butler wasn’t particularly involved on offense, but I felt like he was everywhere he needed to be on defense, kinda roaming off DeMarre Carroll to help J.J. and Tobias contain Harris and Rodions Kurucs as needed -- and then getting the tip that led to the Embiid save and Tobias run-out that basically blew the game open.
But the third -- which the Sixers scored 51 points in total, btw, an NBA playoff record for a quarter -- was most notable as a signature performance for our two young stars. Simmons of course gets the game ball for his overall performance last night, an 18-10-12 triple-double the felt practically mistake-free, and in that third-quarter surge he had two gorgeous drop-offs to Embiid for easy baskets, and the steal-and-score combo that capped the run. But while his offensive line (8-12 FG) is exponentially prettier than Game One’s, it was defensively that his biggest impact was felt -- playing shutdown corner on D’Angelo Russell, who scored 16 in the first half but was barely even able to get his hands on the ball in the third, never scoring after the break. It was an absolutely bullying performance, one of his best ever as a Sixer, and a reminder that the guy’s two-way NBA ceiling remains about as high as any young player’s.
And yet, I still thought Embiid’s performance was the most impressive. He looked about as limited in the first half of this one as I can remember him looking in any on-court stretch this season -- he had about as much lift as J.J. and Boban, was routinely beat on the boards by the springier likes of Kurucs and Jarrett Allen, and even missed a gimme around the basket that he’d flush in healthier times. But even at 60%, he was put the Nets under his armpit in that third-quarter stretch. He didn’t settle for threes, but just drove the lane, earned himself some short jumpers, powered through for some layups, grabbed his own miss and got a putback or got to the line. 23 points in 20 minutes for JoJo in this one, including nine in the opening minutes of the third, to go with 10 boards and a +26. He’s as hampered as I’ve ever seen him, and he still has a PER of 39.9 so far this postseason. I love that man more than I love Dr. Pepper.
Of course, given my prosthelytizing for not-booing on If Not Pick Will Convey as Two Second-Rounders the other day, I got a fair share of WELL LOOKS LIKE THE BOOING WORKED EH for this one, particularly after we reached Q3 escape velocity. And to be fair, the crowd was great last night; we’ve seemed to make nice with our part-time phrenemy Ben Simmons, and things were so generally hype that even Kevin Harlan basically jumped out of his skin at the Frosty Freeze-Out. Did the boos on Saturday actually encourage or bring this out of the Sixers? Seems unlikely to me, but if y’all wanna take a victory lap for this one I guess I couldn’t blame you. I’ll just say two things: Don’t forget that the Nets also missed a couple wide open threes in the third -- remarkable how that helps a team’s performance seem far worse than it actually was -- and just be glad that we don’t have to find out what kind of cumulative effect it has on Simmons and his relationship with the city to have to deal with the boo birds two games in a row.
So, series settled then, order restored? Nah, can’t give us that: This hasn’t been a team to sustain dominance for long periods this season, at least not without something weird happening to break it up. Embiid’s health remains a pressing question, particularly after he bumped knees and maybe rolled his ankle in the fourth before sitting out the rest of the night. Meanwhile the Sixers pretty much have to grab one of two in Brooklyn, and they’ve been a subpar road team all season. But that run last night was a valuable reminder that as flawed as this team’s roster construction is, and how inconsistent and ill-fitting its top-line players can be at times, our best is still much better than Brooklyn’s best can be in this series. And for at least one night, it was the Warriors who had to do the “YOU CAN’T GO AROUND SAYING YOU HAVE FOUR ALL-STARS AND THEN BLOW A 30-POINT LEAD TO THE CLIPPERS” self-flagellation, not us.