BrandonBrownOfficial

6 takeaways from 76ers/Cavs: 1. The habitual slow start finally comes back to bite. The Sixers have been plagued with lousy 1st quarters and halves to start the season. They’ve been getting away with it through dominant 2nd halves, more specifically 4th quarters. No such luck tonight. This is a good thing, however. When you keep getting away with bad basketball, you tend to get comfortable with the trend, and it continues. Tonight can definitely bode well going forward. To put it simply, this team is way too talented and has way too big an expectation to consistently start games behind the 8-ball. 2. No home cooking for LeBron. There’s no need to sugarcoat it… LeBron played probably one of the worst games you’ll ever see. He’d be the first to tell you. He started the game with two unforced turnovers, and it was downhill ever since. It was just the 2nd time since 2007 that LeBron scored in single-digits. An all-around night to forget. Thankfully, the chances of a game like tonight are about 0.6% (10/1630). You won’t have to worry about LeBron. He’s LeBron. 3. No buckets for Embiid. To be fair, for as bad as LeBron was tonight, Embiid’s night was even worse. He went 0/9 from the field and got horsed on the boards. Nothing came easy. Similar to LeBron, it’s just a game to forget. One you throw in the garbage and move on. The only legitimate critique I would have, is Joel’s not-so-great penchant for always wanting to draw the foul instead of powering up and just looking to score. He often rather grift and get to the line, and I understand it’s a huge part of his game, but at times it just makes things harder than that have to be. Leads to turnovers and needless misses that then leads to run-outs. 4. The offense shouldn’t be this stagnant. Coming into the season, many voiced concerns around Nurse’s lack of creativity on that end. You could definitely see some of that tonight. To be fair, everything looks worse when you shoot just 10/40 from deep, but this has also been a trend. The Sixers haven’t been a great three-point shooting team at all. After tonight they’ll likely be 23rd-25th in offense. The shooting has something to do with that, but the offensive process does as well. Philly has a lot of scoring talent, and it was going to be impossible to be greater than the sum of your parts on that end. That being said, there needs to be more to the offense than high ball screens and Embiid post-touches. Of course I’m exaggerating a bit, and I know Philly has the luxury of creating mismatches so easily, but you’d like to see some more consistent off-ball action prior to them getting in and out of their go-to sets. Something to monitor. 5. Maxey’s first half scoring has changed. To start the season, in 5 of the first 7 games, Tyrese was coming out aggressive and having double-digit scoring halves. In the last three, his FGA are down to begin games. Maxey is the best player on the team, and things have just gone smoother when he comes out in attack mode. It really opens things up for the others. Much has been made about his 4th quarter and clutch play, rightfully so, but he has also been the lone bright spot to begin games for a struggling 1st half offense. I think there should be a bit of a concerted effort to get him going again early. I’m aware Embiid also talked about wanting to get touches earlier as well, as he’s such a rhythm player, so I think there’s the possibility for a nice balance there. Brown finds pockets to get his off, VJ plays off the others really well, and LeBron fills in all of the rest. 6. No need to panic (obviously). In the offseason, LeBron spoke about wanting to face real adversity with this group and how important it is in order to build character and identity. Tonight was their first taste of that. They’ll have a nice chance for a get-right game to respond against a reeling Chicago team on Sunday. The Sixers (8-2) still sit atop the East and have a way-ahead of-schedule defensive identity. All is good.