It wasn’t a pretty start, but the Sixers took care of business with a 113-92 win over the Hawks at the Wells Fargo Center Monday.
The Sixers shot just 33 percent in the first half, walking into the locker room to the sound of boos with the score tied 47-47. They blitzed Atlanta with a 31-13 third quarter and never looked back.
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It appeared Hawks head coach Lloyd Pierce, a former Sixers assistant, had their number early, but credit Brett Brown for making great adjustments at the half.
Here are observations from tonight’s win:
• It was a monster bounce-back performance from Ben Simmons. Something that Brown has alluded to before is that it’s crazy how quietly sensational Simmons is. All of a sudden you look up and he’s approaching a triple-double midway through the third quarter.
With how much the Sixers struggled shooting the ball in the first half, they needed their stars to step up and they did. Simmons finished just an assist shy of a triple-double with 21 points, 12 rebounds and nine assists. He also made all five of his free throws.
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• Pierce is well aware of what Joel Embiid is capable of. The former Sixers assistant played him perfectly. Atlanta did a nice job forcing Embiid to catch the ball farther from the basket than he’d like. And when the Sixers got the ball into Embiid, a double team greeted him almost immediately.
In the second half, Simmons would get the ball to Embiid in the high post and then cut to the basket. They worked the give-and-go multiple times with success. Embiid is doing a good job this season of recognizing when teams are trying to get the ball out of his hands. While he scored a season-low 10 points, he took advantage of the double teams with six assists.
• The Markelle Fultz starting experiment took a strange turn. Fultz struggled in the first half, but when he came off the bench for his second-half run, he was terrific offensively. The Hawks gave him a ton of space so he took and made another three.
Oh, and there was this …
The defense is still a big concern. He lost Kent Bazemore on a backdoor cut and had rookie Trae Young blow right by him. He just looks lost at times on that end of the floor.
I’ve been a big proponent of having Fultz start, but I’m starting to flip on that. In the second half of each of the last two games, Fultz has brought offense off the bench. I understand why Brown started the season this way, but maybe Fultz would do better just leading the second unit. Fultz finished with 16 points (7 of 16), seven assists and four rebounds.
• Clearly coming off the bench isn’t affecting how many threes JJ Redick is hoisting. He came into the night attempting 9.2 threes a game. With 11 attempts Monday, he’s now taken 66 on the season. He’s on pace to obliterate his career high of 468 set in 2016-17 with the Clippers. It wasn't his finest shooting performance, going 4 of 15 for just 14 points.
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