This week, we highlight Joel Embiid and perhaps the greatest scoring season in NBA history, Zion Williamson's messy pick-and-roll defense, silver linings for Jaren Jackson Jr. and Memphis and dramatic shrugs at MSG.
Jump to Lowe's Things:
Embiid's special season | Just 5% more of this, Boston
Zion's defense | Carter reclaiming his place
Nurkic doing his part | Hello, Sam Merrill
JJJ's silver lining | New-look Knicks bench
1. When will it be Joel Embiid's year?
"Random."
That's the word assistant coaches from two teams who recently faced the Philadelphia 76ers chose in the wake of Embiid's 70-point masterpiece to explain how Embiid has somehow improved after averaging 33 points per game last season and winning Most Valuable Player.
Even last season, there were nights when Embiid felt at least semi-containable. Well-timed double-teams with smart rotations behind them could confuse him; Embiid averaged 4.2 assists and 3.4 turnovers. Now he's dishing six dimes with no uptick in turnovers.
The James Harden-Embiid two-man game was a slow dance with lots of prelude; defenses could load up on it. A few teams -- notably the Boston Celtics, Embiid's playoff nemesis -- began guarding it by staying attached to Embiid, conceding Harden a driving lane, and sending late help from elsewhere. They would not expose the passing lane from Harden to Embiid. They wanted to erase Embiid's midrange jumper at almost any cost. (By coincidence, a few of the Denver Nuggets' recent opponents have defended the Jamal Murray-Nikola Jokic two-man game in a similar style.)
Embiid began his migration from the post to the foul line area under Doc Rivers, the former Sixers coach hired this week to replace Adrian Griffin with the Milwaukee Bucks. But when Philadelphia fired Rivers, Embiid expressed a desire for the offense to become more unpredictable -- more random.
Nick Nurse, Philly's new coach, is the right tinkerer for that task. Tyrese Maxey seized lead ballhandling duties in the wake of Harden's unhappy departure. That is a stylistic sea change. Maxey is a blur, even in the half court -- less concerned than Harden with arranging the chess pieces before bolting into action. He doesn't hold the ball as much. He's happy tossing it to Embiid at the elbow, sprinting -- and I mean sprinting -- toward him for a handoff, and seeing how the defense reacts.
With more reps, Maxey has gotten better at leading Embiid into those 14-foot jumpers Harden so often fed him.
He brings a different pitter-pat rhythm to Embiid's post touches:
Embiid and Maxey exchange four passes in four seconds. The first entry draws a double-team that forces Jokic to rotate onto Maxey. The second exchange allows Maxey to exploit that mismatch. (How gorgeous is an old-school re-post?)
The net result is that a giant human has somehow become ungraspable. Embiid moves around more. Plays happen faster, in quicker succession. It sounds hyperbolic to say this about a role player, but Nicolas Batum's entry passing has been a new accelerant:
Maxey zooms into staggered screens from Batum and Embiid with 20 on the shot clock. Embiid rolls hard. Batum stays put. Batum's presence there is not an accident. He is Maxey's release valve: bend the defense, catapult Embiid, kick it to Batum with the superior angle.
This is a designed play with the same general idea -- Batum as release valve:
Random. Unpredictable.
Embiid is halfway through what might be the greatest scoring season -- by some measures -- in basketball history. Embiid is averaging 36 points in 34 minutes. Wilt Chamberlain averaging 50.4 points in 48.5 minutes in 1961-62 is the only time any player has averaged at least one point per minute, according to ESPN Stats & Information. Embiid is averaging 1.05 points per minute -- above Chamberlain's rate that season.
He is shooting 53% on long 2s. He lords over the game from the elbow. Embiid has almost become an amalgam of Dirk Nowitzki, Hakeem Olajuwon and Shaquille O'Neal -- elite jump-shooting, balletic footwork, the raw power to foul out your entire front line. The answers to him are dwindling.
Embiid has never been able to sustain his regular-season production into the playoffs. Ill-timed injuries have hurt, but in some seasons, the gap has been way too large. He has had some awful elimination games -- including a no-show in Game 7 against Boston in last season's second round.
The Celtics remain favorites in the East. The Sixers are light on ballhandling beyond Maxey and Embiid, and have three first-round picks to trade ahead of this deadline. They are also sitting on max cap space for this summer, well aware Paul George has not yet signed an extension with the LA Clippers.