The play worked just as the Sixers had practiced it a day earlier.
With Tuesday's game tied 91 apiece and 1.6 seconds left, Dario Saric inbounded the ball to the basket for Robert Covington, who was open thanks to Joel Embiid catching Andrew Wiggins on a screen.
The execution resulted in the game-winning layup with 0.2 remaining to lock in a 93-91 victory over the Timberwolves (see Instant Replay).
The Sixers broke down each element of the game-sealing play after notching their ninth victory of the season.
The inbound
The inbound passer was strategically selected by Brett Brown. Over this season, Brown has been working with Saric to develop this particular skill. There is more that goes into the pass than just identifying the open man.
“We’re trying to grow Dario as an inbounder,” Brown said. “I’ve learned over my years you need somebody that has height and guts. You need height and guts to make those passes so you can see over things. It sounds like it’s not really much on people’s minds. It may surprise you that we place that much emphasis on that position, but it’s true. Dario has been improving.”
NBA
The carefully-crafted pass was Saric’s only assist of the game.
“[It was] right on the money,” Covington said. “Right where we needed it to be.”
The screen
Embiid is the obvious go-to for a final shot. (He called himself clutch following last week’s game against the Denver Nuggets, after all.) Opponents expect the Sixers to find their leading scorer at the end, so they switched it up with another option. Wiggins got stifled when he encountered the towering Embiid.
“Everybody thought the ball is going to me, so they’re going to pay attention to me,” Embiid said. “I use that as a bait, so I just set the screen and Rob got open. If he wasn’t open I was just going to go and try to get the ball and get a quick shot.”
While Embiid has made most of his game look easy this season, there is a learning curve with closing out consistently. The Sixers are implementing ways for him to be a focal point of the final play without him being the one to take the last shot.
“We’ve seen as good as Joel is, he’s still growing and navigating an end-of-a-game [situation],” Brown said. “He had two big turnovers at the end (bad pass, traveling). It’s no secret we’re going to Jo a lot. How he responds to that is going to be part of his growth.
“You can use somebody like that as a facilitator and a quarterback. He doesn’t always have to be the finisher. He can be the passer, he can command that crowd and collapse a defense. … It’s not always as simple as just get Joel Embiid the ball. There’s lots more going on.”
The final shot
The game-winner was scored by an unlikely player. The crowd had been booing Covington all night as he went 3 for 13 from the field (1 for 9 from three) before the last shot. Still, the Sixers believed Covington’s skillset could get the job done.
“I think that Robert, with his length — normally we’d throw something like that for Gerald (Henderson) because of his athleticism — I just felt like they were going to chase Robert thinking he was going to shoot it,” Brown said. “He was long enough to go get it. He made a heck of a catch and a heck of a finish.”
Covington’s first NBA game-winning shot came on a night when he had to play through negative noise bellowing through the Wells Fargo Center (see Covington highlight).
“Fans can get on me as much as they want,” Covington said. “I never let that get in my head because, at the end of the day, I still have a job to do. … It goes in one ear and out the other. I just keep playing.”