Well, that could've gone better. Philadelphia 76ers fans were geeked last night to finally see the 76ers on the NBA's marquee weeknight, as they faced the Minnesota Timberwolves on TNT, their first national Thursday game in such a long time that even Charles Barkley was friggin' pumped. It was gonna be Joel Embiid vs. Karl-Anthony Towns. It was gonna be planned Process vs. whoops-I-guess-we're-doing-this-now Process. It was gonna be, ideally, a pretty good basketball game.
And I imagine it was a damn good game, if you were a Wolves fan. Otherwise, not so much: The Sixers fell 28 down by the end of the first half and never mounted much of a run to get back in it. Andrew Wiggins absolutely killed us, playing like a streamlined combo of Kevin Durant and DeMar DeRozan, and Karl-Anthony Towns got the better of us (and Embiid in particular) a couple times more than we might care to admit, the Wolves' future-superstar (maybe lose the "future") duo combining for 60 points and 20 boards. Final score: Timberwolves 110, 76ers 86.
Simply put, it was sobering how much further ahead of the game the Wolves looked than us. Of course, it's a lot easier to stay on schedule when all your blue-chip draft picks a) play different positions and b) seem to keep their lower bodies free of tragedy. But still, it hurt to see this team that majorly lucked out in the lottery twice after being driven to the league's bottom by managerial incompetence clearly on their way to contention while the Sixers still figure out what to do with just everyone on the roster whose name doesn't rhyme with Hotel Zen Weed.
Speaking of JoJo... he didn't exactly flop in this one, ending with an entirely respectable 10 and 10 (already his third double-double in eight games) in 22 minutes, with a season-low two turnovers. But it wasn't really the national coming-out we were hoping for from the Process, either -- the Wolves played JoJo well, fronting him in the post and sending hard doubles on the catch, and while Embiid has improved in not panicking and turning the ball over as soon as he's doubled, he doesn't know how to make defenses pay for it yet. And on the other end, he played Towns to a draw on a couple possessions, but got beat by KAT on a nice around-and-under in the second half, and absolutely punked on one pump-fake that let to a thunderous dunk. It's hardly surprising Towns seems to be a little further along in his game than Joel, considering he's, y'know, actually been playing these past few years, but man it woulda been nice to see Embiid shut him down a little.
Anyway, Embiid still came away smelling much rosier than the rest of the Sixers' starters, who were roundly putrid in this one, shooting a combined 7-32. Robert Covington in particular seems trapped in some kind of existential vortex -- after a brief bounceback, he's now 1-18 from deep for his last three games, and is absolutely killing us with some of his wide-open misses. At least Dario ended up with a nice final stat line, scoring 16 on 6-11 with four boards and a couple steals, and the Nik Stauskas Is Legit train kept a-rollin', with Sauce pouring on 13 on 4-8 shooting, including a 35-footer to beat the closing buzzer in the third -- a shot that, oddly, it feels like he should make with regularity. Five straight in double-figures now for Nik, his first such streak since the very beginning of his Sixers career.
Still, small comfort after a game in which the Sixers were ultimately put in their place by a young, exciting team that's simply a lot better than we are right now. Oh well -- the Sixers will get to lick their wounds at home this weekend, with an imminently winnable Saturday game against the Phoenix Suns. We'll see Minny in the NBA finals soon enough, and by then Embiid will be torturing Towns so flagrantly that his 5th grade language arts teacher will come rushing from the stands to protect him. It'll be worth the wait, promise.