Wednesday night’s matchup between the Sixers and Washington Wizards — the Sixers’ first home game in nearly two weeks — featured a pair of teams with plenty of incentive to lose. Washington entered the night tied with the Utah Jazz for the worst record in the NBA as they pursued the top odds in the NBA Draft Lottery. Meanwhile, the Sixers’ continued attempt to safeguard their top-six protected first-round pick rolled on for another night, with nine more to go.
The Sixers were the losers of the game and the victors of the tank battle, falling 119-114 to the Wizards after a horrid first quarter in which they allowed Washington to score 45 points. The atmosphere inside the arena was grim, but it was a pivotal loss for the Sixers’ ongoing tanking efforts. Some observations and tidbits from the action:
Appreciating Guerschon Yabusele’s story
One of the few genuine bright spots in this catastrophic Sixers campaign has been Yabusele, who paid his own hefty buyout to leave Real Madrid and bet on himself on a veteran’s minimum deal with the Sixers after a stellar run in the Olympics. In his first NBA season in five years, Yabusele has established himself as a quality rotation big who is not just an option at the four but possibly even more valuable as a center, where his three-point shooting — which turned out to have improved far more than anyone expected — makes him a terrific floor spacer. Yabusele has drawn the admiration of his teammates and coaches all season long, not to mention the fans.
It was only fitting, then, that as the Sixers were run off the floor early on by the NBA-worst Wizards, it was just Yabusele who kept them afloat. Truly, it was just Yabusele, as the 29-year-old scored all of the team’s points in the first five-plus minutes of the game before checking out, returning to the floor and helping lead a run to make the scoreboard look a bit less disastrous.
Yabusele looked surprisingly spry and active for someone who has had to log a lot of taxing minutes while already dealing with significant fatigue dating back to last month. He was moving better than he has since before the All-Star break, and threw down a powerful transition slam to show just how good he felt:
Yabusele is nine games away from completing his first NBA season in five years and, in the process, earning himself a chance to secure a substantial contract. It remains an incredible story, even if not happened amid a disastrous Sixers season. The Sixers not trading Yabusele despite reportedly being contacted by several contenders with interest in him signaled a belief that the team will be able to find a way to retain him. For what it’s worth, Yabusele has consistently expressed genuine gratitude to the Sixers for being the ones to give him a chance at establishing himself as an NBA-caliber player.
Where do the Sixers’ two-way players stand with nine more games to play?
As the majority of the Sixers’ players inked to standard contracts for the remainder of the season are unavailable right now, the constant shuffling of 10-day hardship exception players and bookkeeping of available remaining NBA days on the two-way contracts of Jeff Dowtin Jr., Jalen Hood-Schifino and Alex Reese have become of interest.
Asked before Wednesday’s game if he would give extended run to his two-way players when they are available, Sixers head coach Nick Nurse said he would indeed be cognizant of the fact that their opportunities to play are limited for the remainder of the season. Dowtin was the only one of the trio available on Wednesday — Reese was a healthy scratch and Hood-Schifino was sick — and it marked his 48th time active for the Sixers this season, meaning he can only suit up twice more in the Sixers’ final nine games.
Nurse speculated about the numbers for all three players in terms of remaining NBA days, and soon after PhillyVoice was able to confirm them. With nine games left to play after Wednesday’s game against Washington, here is how many times each Sixers two-way player can be used:
• Jeff Dowtin Jr.: 2
• Jalen Hood-Schifino: 7
• Alex Reese: 5
“I think that just makes sense just considering the number of available bodies we have,” Nurse said when asked about making sure two-way players received considerable playing time when active.
Odds and ends
A few more notes and takeaways from this one:
• Tonight’s bell-ringer was none other than Will Smith, who successfully pulled off this trick that he was working on moments before the big moment came:
It certainly felt odd for a celebrity of this magnitude to ring the bell for a game like… this… but he was promoting the release of his upcoming album.
• Phillip Wheeler, signed to a 10-day contract just hours before this game tipped off, was part of the Sixers’ rotation and scored his first basket quickly. Wheeler will be eligible to play in five games during the span of his deal. Marcus Bagley, in his second NBA game with the Sixers — or any organization for that matter — was part of Nurse’s first substitutions and found himself in a substantial role off the bench.
• Quentin Grimes played just okay by his own lofty standards, and did not do much that surprised in either direction. One thing worth noting: Grimes knocked down a corner three in the first quartrer and landed on the foot of a fan. He was wincing on his way back down the court, but ended up staying in the game. In the second quarter, Grimes spaced to the corner in transition and caught a pass, but instead of taking a wide open triple he fires away on in his sleep, Grimes became hesitant and passed the ball. It is not worth speculating too much, but at least anecdotally it seems like ankle sprains are injuries that feel worse after a night of sleep. The Sixers will have an injury report on Friday ahead of their next game, time will tell if Grimes is on it.
Up next: The Sixers will have a pair of days off before returning to action on Saturday night against the Miami Heat.
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(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
