Two games at home with the Sixers for James Harden, two comeback wins.
The Sixers erased a 21-point deficit Friday night and earned a 125-119 victory over the Cavs. They’re now 39-23 overall and 4-0 with Harden.
Tyrese Maxey played a magnificent game, scoring 33 points and dishing out five assists.
Harden had 25 points and 11 assists. Joel Embiid recorded 22 points and nine rebounds.
“We need this,” Harden said. “We need this for our team, our togetherness. And quite frankly, we’ve got 20 games left before s— gets real. So we need games like this to prepare us. Being down in that first half was probably a good thing, just to see our resilience and to see what we’re made of. Tonight was a pretty good start. We’ve got to just keep chipping away.”
Four Cavs scored 20 or more points, led by Darius Garland’s 26. Garland also had 19 assists. Cleveland’s Caris LeVert, Collin Sexton and Rajon Rondo were out with injuries.
The Sixers will face the Heat on Saturday night in Miami. Here are observations on their win over the Cavs:
Scorching start by Cleveland
The Cavs made their first nine field goals and seemed to get wherever they wanted to go.
There were few instances early on in which the Sixers contained dribble penetration or forced Cleveland ball handlers to deviate from their preferred path. Especially on a team still integrating a new piece in Harden, it’s important to have greater resistance on the ball and less challenging rotations.
Isaac Okoro, who entered the game averaging 8.8 points, scored 13 in the first eight minutes. He was aggressive in his matchup against Maxey and one of several Cavs to profit in transition. Cleveland scored 10 fast-break points in the first quarter and grabbed a 39-18 lead on a Kevin Love three-pointer.
The Cavs posted 60 points on 34 field-goal attempts in under 18 minutes, which is awfully tough for any team to match.
Defense was by far the Sixers’ biggest problem, but it didn’t help that they committed a few costly turnovers against the Cavs’ zone. A lofted Maxey pass intended for Embiid in the high post created a Cleveland fast break that finished with two Okoro foul shots.
Harden adopted a pass-first approach to begin the evening. He passed up a look under the basket and didn’t take a shot until 53.6 seconds remained in the first. There’s nothing wrong with him aiming to get teammates good shots, though it’s clear consistently finding opportunities for Harden and Embiid against zones will be key. Miami will almost certainly give the Sixers more zone reps Saturday night.
Georges Niang drained three first-period threes against the Cavs’ zone. And Shake Milton made his first triple since Jan. 3, the night he suffered a back contusion. He’d been 0 for 10 from long range since returning from the injury.
Harden’s foul trouble doesn’t sink Sixers
Harden picked up his third foul with eight minutes and 31 seconds to go in the second quarter and sat the rest of the first half.
His second foul incensed the home crowd; Harden was whistled for an offensive foul on Evan Mobley as he shot a three at the end of the first period. An Embiid offensive foul early in the third quarter, his fourth foul of the game, also provoked impassioned anti-official sentiment.
Ultimately, the Sixers managed just fine with their All-Star guard off the floor. They outscored Cleveland by eight points in those minutes and Milton gave the offense a little juice, hitting two short mid-range shots in addition to the aforementioned three-pointer.
Posting Embiid and Tobias Harris up against the zone yielded strong results during the Harden-less stretch. The passing wasn’t especially crisp — Embiid was visibly annoyed when Harris failed to throw an entry pass despite the big man having good position on Mobley — but the Sixers targeted favorable areas well and focused on inflicting damage in the paint.
“Overall, I thought early on, at the start we struggled,” Sixers head coach Doc Rivers said. “And then I thought we literally scored every time on it. That’s why they got out of it. I didn’t like where Joel was at early on in our zone (offense). He was out at the three-point line. Once we got him down low, we got drives, we got (post-ups), we got shots. So I didn’t think it was a big deal.”
On the other end, the Sixers used a zone of their own and kept the Cavs from sustaining their absurd scoring pace. Perhaps they’ll consider turning to a zone more moving forward as a backup plan, change of pace against hot opponents, or method to work around key players’ foul trouble. It made sense Friday for all those reasons.
Maxey flips a special switch
Maxey possesses a fantastic top gear, as he displayed yet again in the third quarter.
When he breaks free in the open floor and displays zero concern about what might go wrong if he attacks the paint, he’s a formidable threat who can fundamentally change games.
Maxey’s determined drives and three-point shooting ensured the Sixers began the second half well. He zoomed down the court and lobbed the ball up to Embiid for a layup that cut Cleveland’s lead to 87-85.
Because Matisse Thybulle was called for his fifth foul in the third quarter, Maxey guarded Garland in the fourth. He outshined the Cavs’ All-Star guard (and everyone else on the floor, for that matter) with another incredible burst. Maxey hit back-to-back threes, then threw down a lefty fast-break dunk to put the Sixers ahead 112-106.
Milton (11 points, four rebounds) played in the second half and Furkan Korkmaz did not following seven scoreless first-half minutes.
Paul Millsap backed up Embiid for eight minutes. The Sixers in the fourth quarter used a small-ball lineup with Harris and Niang in the frontcourt, and it got the job done. Niang scored 17 points in 23 minutes and was a vital part of the comeback effort.
“I thought in the fourth quarter, that small lineup that hasn’t been effective this year was phenomenal tonight,” Rivers said. “But it hasn’t been effective without James. We’ve never played it with James in the lineup, and I thought that was something we stumbled on. So there’s little things that we’re just going to keep learning.”
Four games in, Niang has enjoyed playing with Harden and made 10 of 20 three-point tries.
“He does a great job of making everybody look at him and then they forget about me, and it’s been working. We should do that a lot,” Niang quipped. “He’s a great player. He does what he does and like I’ve said before, he’s a basketball savant. He just finds crafty ways to get other guys involved and to score. I’ve been lucky enough to be on the receiving end of that.”
New signing DeAndre Jordan is expected to join the Sixers on Saturday.
Of course, the Harden-Embiid duo was in the spotlight down the stretch, not the backup center situation. A one-legged Embiid fadeaway and a Harden leaner essentially cemented the Sixers’ win.
When the Sixers have a lead, it’s now hard to envision opponents managing tons of late-game stops. And when the Sixers are down, they’ve shown the last two games that comebacks are very much on the table.
