PLAYER GRADES: Orlando Magic 111, Philadelphia 76ers 106
Jimmy Butler made his debut for the Philadelphia 76ers on Wednesday night. While showing some promising flashes, the team coughed up a 16-point lead and the Orlando Magic came back to win the contest.
There was a ton of excitement surrounding tonight’s game, as it was the start of a brand new era with Jimmy Butler in the fold. The Philadelphia 76ers looked good for the majority of the game.
But, the Sixers are the Sixers. The game quickly went from promising to very frustrating within a few short minutes.
The start of the game looked promising as Joel Embiid knocked down three three-pointers in a row, and looked to be clicking on offense. Jimmy Butler looked good early on as he hit a bunch of lay-ups and dunks resulting from his off-ball movement.
During the second half the Sixers had trouble playing defense, especially against Nikola Vucevic. Embiid did an okay job defending him, but the team really had no answer outside of him when it came to Vucevic.
In the third quarter, the teams went back and fourth for the most part. It wasn’t until the middle of the third quarter that the Sixers began to pull away with a decent lead. The team was able to put themselves up double digits going into the fourth quarter, which is typically a good thing.
The Sixers went on an insane scoring drought in the fourth quarter, allowing the Orlando Magic to put together a 21-0 run. There are many reasons why this happened, but the offensive sets tonight were absolutely horrible.
Embiid ended up setting for too many outside shots and the Sixers didn’t run any plays for Jimmy Butler (who is the leading fourth quarter scorer in the NBA).
While tonight’s game showed a ton of frustrating elements for the Philadelphia 76ers, there were some positives to go along with it. Let’s check out some grades:
<strong>35 mins | 19 pts | 13 reb | 10 ast | 0 stl | 2 blk | 2 TO | 6-20 FG | 4-7 3PT| 3-4 FT | 2 PF | 2 +/-|</strong><p>A bright spot in tonight’s game is the fact <a rel=. C. Philadelphia 76ers. JOEL EMBIID. B-
D. <strong>31 mins | 9 pts | 3 reb | 6 ast | 0 stl | 1 blk | 1 TO | 3-5 FG | 0-0 3PT| 3-5 FT | 3 PF | +/-12|</strong><p>It hurts saying this, but <a href=. PG/PF. Philadelphia 76ers. BEN SIMMONS
JIMMY BUTLER. B-. <strong>32 mins | 14 pts | 4 reb | 2 ast | 0 stl | 0 blk | 2 TO | 6-12 FG | 0-1 3PT| 2-2 FT | 3 PF | +/-10|</strong><p>The reason most people closely watched tonight’s game was Jimmy Butler’s highly anticipated debut. For the most part, Butler looked good. He had a ton of off-ball cuts, and scored the majority of his points off assists. He shot the ball well, and defended Orlando’s wings effectively.</p><p>For some reason, the Sixers didn’t use him at all down the stretch which was very weird. Hopefully that changes going forward. Considering this was Butler’s first game with two high usage players in Simmons and Embiid, he showed a lot of promise.</p>. SF/SG. Philadelphia 76ers
Philadelphia 76ers. WILSON CHANDLER. B+. <strong>23 mins | 14 pts | 4 reb | 0 ast | 1 stl | 0 blk | 1 TO | 6-10 FG | 2-4 3PT| 0-0 FT | 2 PF | 2 +/-|</strong><p>If I told you <a href=. PF/SF
<strong>38 mins | 22 pts | 4 reb | 6 ast | 0 stl | 0 blk | 4 TO | 8-13 FG | 4-7 3PT| 2-2 FT | 3 PF | 8+/-|</strong><p><a href=. SG. Philadelphia 76ers. J.J. REDICK. B
While this loss is disappointing, it’s important to remember that this was the teams first game implementing a major piece in Jimmy Butler. The team will learn from this and bounce back.
Going forward, Butler needs to have some offensive sets created for him. The Sixers didn’t use him in many on-ball situations, which I would imagine will change very shortly.
Next. Thoughts on the Jimmy Butler trade (Roundtable). dark
Luckily, the Philadelphia 76ers will come home for a Friday night game against the Rookie of the Year runner-up Donovan Mitchell and the Utah Jazz. The Sixers will look to go 8-0 at home and remain undefeated