Barnes & Quickley team up for a 76ers take down
The Philadelphia 76ers are mired in something right now, and it isn’t good. With the Raptors in town — and quite a few Super Bowl Champions on the sideline seats — the relatively healthy (for them!) 76ers tried to muster up what it takes to beat the relatively unhealthy Raptors. Only, the Raptors were equipped with a highly motivated duo of Immanuel Quickley & Scottie Barnes, and the 76ers were, well, miring.
Over Barnes’ last 15 games coming into this one, he was shooting a paltry 39-percent from the field and 22-percent from downtown. Everyone is plugged into his shot diet now, how it looks, and to give you a number: Barnes, who is not a good pull-up shooter, is in the top 20-percent of the NBA in pull-up shooting volume. I’ve written about this before, how this season is a bit of a punch up at wingification for Barnes and all that jazz.
It’s worth saying that Barnes has no elite driving seasons under his belt, no elite scoring seasons under his belt, so it is maybe a bit jarring to see him spend so much of his time doing things that he struggles with. Giannis Antetokounmpo doubled his 3pt attempts after he won his first MVP and averaged 28 points per game. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has doubled his 3pt attempts this season after laying down north of 30 points per game two seasons in a row. Progression isn’t linear though, and Barnes is addressing some of this stuff earlier than myself and many others might have expected.
The interesting though, is Barnes’ claims that Matt Bonner changed his approach for a night:
I’ll be honest, I do believe that external media commentary is capable of spurring on performances. Lots of athletes have talked about this. However, I think what more than likely created the environment for Barnes’ scintillating 33-point performance was the 76ers defense. Barnes getting to the free throw line 15 times and finishing 10/16 from the field was a function of the 76ers having no one to guard him. Paul George isn’t big enough — as he’s a lithe athlete who does well chasing off-ball and guarding down a position, especially at this point in his career — Justin Edwards and Kelly Oubre Jr. are smaller than George, and any matchup that Barnes had with the aforementioned players – he mashed them.
On the other side of things, you have a significantly hobbled Joel Embiid — who is openly acknowledging his forthcoming surgeries — and a very stocky, yes, but very limited in movement Guerschon Yabusele. The 76ers also play a lot of drop defense, which historically Barnes does really well against, as it doesn’t force him to beat his man off the dribble and sends him downhill – where he’s fantastic.
In other words: Scottie Barnes had the 76ers stuck between a rock and slow place.
Over the last 15 games we’ve watched Barnes dominate on the defensive end, and muck through the tough stuff on offense, but against the 76ers he dominated everything. He was fantastic. Hard charging drives to the rim, yet another 3 stock game on the less glamorous side of the floor, and a big night helping out on the glass.
Joining Barnes, of course, was Quickley – who was sublime. Not only was Quickley quite effective at following Tyrese Maxey around, but for an offense starved team such as the Raptors, Quickley’s shot-making was a major jolt to the system. 23 points on 11 shots for the Raptors lead guard, and he did so while letting his jumper do the large majority of the work. These types of performances are not only a sight for sore eyes now, but could be a major building block going forward. The first jumper he got to go down came as the result of a screen with Barnes that the 76ers switched on, and Quickley stepped back to can a triple over Yabusele. His second step-back was a hyper aggressive take, as Quickley ran off a double-drag and quickly pitched back to Jonathan Mogbo, using him as an obstruction to dip and duck around before launching from deep.
Good. Great. Love it.
And on the other side of things, the zombified 76ers. George scored 14. Maxey scored 5 points on 9 shot attempts and didn’t make his first field goal until the game was nearly at its death. Although, Maxey still made time to miss a couple shots in clutch time. Don’t get me wrong either, I love Maxey’s game and he came into this matchup having scored 25+ in 18 straight games. He was averaging 32 points over his last 18 games coming into this one! He is an electric, outstanding player. Last night though, wow, no juice.
Embiid was fine enough, by the way, but not nearly the what you might have expected with the Raptors short their lone, true big man: Jakob Poeltl. Embiid wrestled all night with Mogbo, Orlando Robinson, and a unsurprisingly spry Ulrich Chomche, and found his way to 27 points on 19 shots (42% from the floor). This is the Joel Embiid though, whotypically annihilates frontcourts that are ill-prepared for him, and it was mostly palatable for the Raptors defense. Embiid got his, but he wasn’t much of a creator for others, and the 76ers only managed to score 103 points on the night. Having spent so much of my life watching the trio of Embiid, Maxey and George be truly excellent (at different times, of course), this was a weird one.
It was a really fun wrinkle too, that Gradey Dick hit his last 4 shots (with 3 of them coming from beyond the arc) to rescue what really started out as a terrible performance for himself, and to help lift the Raptors clutch time offense over the sputtering 76ers. More than any other player, Dick has looked the most like he will welcome the rest that comes with All-Star weekend (despite his participation in the Rising Stars game), and he has a chance, if he plays well today, to head out on a good note. After all, the last time the Cavaliers were in Toronto, Dick led the starters in scoring. We’ll see.
All in all, a game with a lot of little wins for the Raptors in a season that hasn’t had so many. Barnes gets the chain, we move on to the Cavaliers today.
Have a blessed day.
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