PHOENIX — In a season filled with expectation but has gone off the rails and lost a bit of the plot in only six games, the Philadelphia 76ers surely needed some positive energy on Monday night.
So here’s a positive thought: The Sixers got Paul George in uniform and they looked like a real live basketball team against the Phoenix Suns.
As has been the result five times already this young regular season, the Sixers came up short. They allowed Kevin Durant to take over a game they had seemingly won, and they dropped to 1-5 with a 118-116 loss. They led by nine points with five minutes remaining, so this was a game the Sixers should have found a way to close out.
But with George making his 76ers debut, after missing the first five games with a bone bruise on his left knee, the Sixers finally trotted out a dynamic offense. They looked and played well, despite a loss that would be difficult to take under most circumstances. It’s why the mood in the postgame locker room was positive. This Philadelphia team has had to deal with a season’s worth of adversity in a few weeks from the unavailability of George and star center Joel Embiid to the questions that have come with it including Saturday night’s incident between Embiid and a Philadelphia Inquirer reporter. And now there’s the NBA’s investigation about the incident, making Embiid’s status even more uncertain.
And that’s just off the court.
On the floor, the Sixers have looked clunky offensively. There’s been too much responsibility on young star Tyrese Maxey to create for himself and others. The role players have had to play far outside their roles. Offense has been a chore. So George finally being healthy and able to play brought the Sixers closer to who they thought they would look like this season on Monday night. Sure, it ended in a loss. But now the team can focus on improving the little things on the margins. George takes care of a lot of the major issues.
“He takes a lot of the pressure off all of us,” Maxey told The Athletic. “With him on the floor, you can see it. We’re a lot more balanced. I didn’t have to do as much, so I was a lot more fresh. It just helps all of us, having him back.”
George didn’t play particularly well on Monday night. Most importantly, he didn’t realize the 76ers were down two points on the final possession. He thought the Sixers were down a single point, which is why he took a contested 20-foot jumper in the waning seconds. Had he realized the score, he would have taken a 3-pointer, make or miss, for the win. That’s a mental error that can’t happen for someone of George’s talent and experience.
He shot just 4-of-14 from the field and turned the ball over seven times. But that’s mostly the product of rust. That’s going to happen when you don’t play basketball under game conditions for an extended period. When the Sixers needed a few made shots to close the game, Paul didn’t score in the fourth quarter.
But he came out of Monday night healthy. There were no setbacks. There were no ill effects in the locker room. He’s ready to tackle the remainder of a three-game road trip that features a matchup on Wednesday night against his old team, the Los Angeles Clippers.
“I’ll watch the film of the game, and I’ll be able to do my normal recovery,” George said. “I felt great. My wind and my conditioning were better than expected. There were times that I was tired. There were times that I was gassed. But I wanted to play through it, because I wanted to build my endurance. I wasn’t supposed to play 31 minutes, but I wanted to play 31 minutes, if you know what I mean.”
the PG8 era has begun! @forthepeople pic.twitter.com/AX7rFLnObv
— Philadelphia 76ers (@sixers) November 5, 2024
The shooting will come around for George, who is one of the most skilled players in the game. But even with the rust, you could see what his presence did for the rest of the Sixers. It freed Maxey to concentrate on creating for himself, without the burden of having to run the entire offense. With George, the 76ers spacing was better than it had been at any point this season. With George, the Sixers were a bigger team, particularly on the perimeter. And with George, the Sixers were able to attack Phoenix’s defense from multiple angles on the floor. Shots for the role players were a lot less contested. Offense came easier.
Monday night was the first time this season the Sixers got to as many as 110 points in regulation. (They scored 118 points in overtime against the Indiana Pacers in their only win.) They made 20 3s, they played fast, they had 27 assists. George’s gravity and his ability to create a basketball advantage helped in all of those areas.
“I think there were certainly real positives,” Sixers head coach Nick Nurse said. “I think one of the biggest is that we had 27 assists. That’s like a big number for us this season so far. So you can see what adding one dynamic creator to our offense does. It changes a lot for us. There’s a lot more space to move the ball, and there are a lot more opportunities for the guys on the floor. There are a lot more opportunities for open shots and to move the basketball, and I thought the guys did a really good job of that.”
A loss is still a loss. Only the Milwaukee Bucks have gotten off to a worse start in the Eastern Conference than Philadelphia. But it bodes well that the Sixers were in position to beat a very good Phoenix team on the road. How much does that mean? It becomes tangible if the Sixers start coming up with some wins. Bear in mind that the Sixers still don’t know how long they are going to be without Embiid.
He has accompanied the team on its current road trip through the Western Conference. He was at shootaround and in good spirits. But the league’s investigation into Saturday night’s incident with Inquirer columnist Marcus Hayes has yet to conclude. And Embiid’s ramp-up to playing has been slow. Barring league punishment of some sort, the Sixers aren’t ruling Embiid out for this trip. But there isn’t a definitive answer on when he’s going to be available.
So Monday night’s team? That could be the team for the time being. Obviously, with all three of their stars available, the Sixers still project as a dynamic roster. But the wins have to start coming. Even in an 82-game season, Philadelphia needs to avoid digging too much of a hole for itself.
So the Sixers are celebrating George’s debut. They saw how much better his inclusion into the lineup made the roster look.
“We aren’t worried,” Maxey said. “We just know that we have to be better down the stretch of games. The important part is that we got Paul back, and him being back helps us all.”
(Photo of Paul George being defended by Jusuf Nurkic and Devin Booker: Joe Camporeale / Imagn Images)
