First of all, a meaning ful midseason victory
PHILADELPHIA » The NBA regular season, whether at full length or in the 2021 bite-sized variety, too seldom provides what Doc Rivers was anticipating Wednesday.
Vandalized by games featuring teams in midtank, filthy with nights when superstars rest for injuries well below emergency-room variety, and littered with players ever fighting off the fatigue of travel and the aches absorbed in beneath-hoop collisions, the NBA is ever-tested to provide optimum entertainment and meaning.
When it does, though, it will captivate.
When it can, it will tell plenty. So it was Wednesday when the best team in the Western Conference, the Utah Jazz, strolled into the Wells Fargo Center for a game against the Eastern Conference-leading 76ers. For the showcase moment, both teams would be at reasonably full staffing, with the Sixers flush with their preferred 10-man rotation.
With the All-Star break to follow, there would be no lookahead concentration drain. And even with the second half of the 72-game mini-season still to unfold, there would be no way to hide what it all meant.
Not that it was a must win, or that it would be remembered much past St. Patrick’s Day. But it was a test. The players knew it, then showed it by how they played.
“Hopefully, it’s a precursor to the end of the year,” the Sixers coach said as the game approached. “You know what I mean? If we continue to play and they continue to play, I think we would all be thrilled to death if we played a third time.
That would mean we are all in the right place.”
If they both play as they did for 53 minutes in a 131123 Sixers victory, and they do it over seven games in the spring, it would be a pro-sports treat. Both teams played as if there was something more at stake than continued first-place status, through overtime. They defended with determination, with the Sixers demonstrating relentless rim protection during the fourth quarter and overtime.
The Sixers showed why they are the best in the East, proving that the Jazz does not have enough quality man-to-man defenders beyond Rudy Gobert to stop all of Rivers’ scorers.
The Jazz showed why they are the best in the West, unloading Donovan Mitchell, who labored around a tough, Ben Simmons-led defense to score 33.
And together, they showed why it all mattered, leaping for 50-50 balls, fouling hard and working the officials. So clear was it that it was no standard regular-season, cross-conference obligation that Mitchell was tossed with 30.8 seconds left in overtime after bagging his second technical foul.
For effect, he overturned a water bucket on the way to the locker room.
“I think we’ve done this at least six times in the first half of the season, where we were down and coming down the stretch we made comebacks and we closed,” Rivers said. “It shows the mental toughness that a lot of people didn’t think we had before the season started. So I think our guys showed they can hang in there in tight games.”
Utah won the other regular-season meeting, 134-122, in Salt Lake City in February. That the Sixers played that one without Embiid, who has been known to take the odd night off, they were mildly heartened that they were not out of place. It’s one reason they were so amped for the rematch, down to its last 6.5 seconds of regulation, when Embiid canned an off-balance 3-pointer to effectively force overtime.
“It’s going to be good,” Embiid said beforehand. “They are a great team. They are dominating their league right now. So it would be a great win to go into the break. It would give us a lot of confidence going in.”
While the game was relevant, it hardly meant that the Jazz and Sixers will settle it all in the NBA Finals. The Nets will have something to say about that, and so will LeBron James. There are always substantial roster changes at the trade deadline. The postseason road to the final round is its own puzzle. There will be injuries. Breaks, good and bad. Coaching adjustments.
But one thing was clear Wednesday: The top teams in both conference played as if it mattered a little more than usual.
That the game was squeezed in just before the break added coaching challenges. Rivers was so concerned that the Sixers could be preoccupied by the prospect of a long weekend off that he chose not to even bring up the topic in the locker room.
“I won’t do that,” he said. “Because I know the answer.”
He knew there would be distractions, and as the game approached, he tried not to elevate it from a responsibility to a mission.
“It’s typically a hard game for both teams,” he said, of the All-Star break get-away affair. “Guys are making plans and things, probably not as much as in normal times, but guys are looking to get away. We just want to make sure they ‘leave’ after the game, not before the game, I guess.”
Not only did the Sixers not leave early, they stayed around late, winning when Tobias Harris scored 11 points in overtime, exposing Utah’s lack of game-changing defenders.
“It was the kind of game,” said Embiid, who finished with 40 points and 19 rebounds, chasing it with a few postgame rips at Gobert, the sitting NBA Defensive Player of the Year, “we have to dominate.”
For that, Rivers was both delighted and relieved. Asked before the game what he would like to see, he had a quick answer: “A win.”
With that, he let out a laugh.
Three hours later, it was still echoing.