How the Sixers Handled an Aggressive Defense to Win Their Fifth Straight

The Sixers responded to an aggressive defensive game plan from the Golden State Warriors by giving the ball to VJ Edgecombe, and he delivered a masterpiece on the second night of a back-to-back, powering the Sixers to their fifth straight win.

Here's what happened.

Anyone but Maxey

The Warriors made it very clear coming out of the gate that if they were going to lose, they were going to lose because someone they didn't expect beat them. They trapped Maxey aggressively as soon as he got past halfcourt. His only option was to draw the trap out as far as he could and then pass to the open teammate for a four-on-three with the remainder of the court.

It got the Warriors into rotation, creating good looks for Philadelphia as long as Maxey was on the court. Edgecombe did his part to finish off a number of those scrambled possessions, attacking those rotations on swing passes and dropping a couple mid-range jumpers in the paint.

Maxey eventually countered the trapping by putting the ball in Edgecombe's hands. Nick Nurse put additional ball-handling on the court in Quentin Grimes and Trendon Watford.

Eventually, Nurse just took Maxey out of the game for an extended rest and let the game play out as five-on-five. Adem Bona and Grimes did their parts to reward Nurse's move, Bona throwing down an oop from Grimes and a put-back dunk. He even finally got a clean dunk on a one-man fastbreak, much to the enjoyment of his Sixer teammates.

Grimes also deserves his spotlight. He played fast, leveraging his quick-twitch athleticism off the dribble. But he didn't play out of control. His shot selection wasn't great, Grimes pulling the early trigger on a pair of out-of-rhythm threes that bricked hard. But he did see a pair of threes fall during the team's run with Maxey off the court.

I will say, as much as Maxey made the right passes to beat the traps, he didn't make much of an effort to sneak back into the possession while the Warriors looked away. He accepted that the Warriors were trapping and tried to stretch them out, lingering up by the halfcourt line. When Philadelphia's lead leaked away, Maxey was basically a bystander as his teammates struggled. Once you get off the ball, you have to come back to the ball. He wasn't assertive in that regard.

Edgecombe elevates

The Sixers needed someone to step up and take control of the offense with the Warriors effectively taking Maxey out of the game. That someone was Edgecombe in the second half. He was forceful attacking downhill on the first or second pass out of the trap, fighting through contact in the paint.

Edgecombe, on the second night of a back-to-back, was the best player on either team for long stretches of this game. After shooting 1-for-11 against the Los Angeles Clippers on Monday, Edgecombe accepted some heavy ball-handling duties and led Philadelphia in scoring.

Edgecombe does a lot of possessition initiation. He brings the ball up and makes the first pass. He does not get a lot of opportunities to actually make decisions with the ball on the move. He was afforded that latitude in this game, and Edgecombe capitalized.

Thinking forward with Edgecombe's development, it would be a summer well spent if he came back next season with a prolific off-the-dribble game in the mid-range. He's shown comfort with that shot throughout the season, and it would be a good base for building his self-creation game.

I think the end game might be that Edgecombe eventually becomes the point guard with Maxey moving off the ball. This game, by itself, doesn't hold much weight. It's the consistent pattern of Edgecombe making excellent passing reads that breeds confidence the lead ball-handling job is in his future.

The mid-range game and the point guard job are not functions of each other. They can exist separately. But Edgecombe is already demonstrating variety to his mid-range package. He can hit pull-ups from the nail, contested middies through contact within the foul line and drill baseline jumpers fading off the dribble. Nailing that part of his game down would amount to leverage and gravity on the move, thereby opeing up his passing reads even more.

But that's looking ahead. The Sixers will settle for a 25-point, seven-rebound and seven-assist night to lead a fifth consecutive victory.

Wild thing

Andre Drummond finished with 12 points and 11 rebounds. But, man, was he having a rough go in this game. I would be inclined to attribute his play to some rust after being out of the rotation for a while, but he lost his spot in the rotation because of consistently poorly play. Also, you lose that alibi when you champion having a 'next man up' mentality.

Sometimes you wonder what he sees when he catches the ball deep in the paint. He'll talk himself into some wild shot attempts, lunging for dunks over taller guys or going back up wildly after coming down with an offensive rebound. He caught a lob and came down with it, only to then lose the ball going up for a score, resulting in a turnover. The Sixers built a 15-point lead in the middle of the second quarter, and you thought they were well on their way to a blowout win. Re-enter Drummond, and he single-handedly played the Warriors back into the game.

Spare thoughts

Six more offensive rebounds for Dominick Barlow. 16 offensive rebounds across the back-to-back. He's earning every bit of that standard contract he'll ostensibly sign soon.

Good game for Trendon Watford, who played a physical brand of basketball in the paint. Having said that, if he stares down and rejects another open three, I'm going to need 50 pushups.

I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why Jared McCain only played eight minutes in this game. Grimes didn't exactly set the world on fire, although he was an important contributor. Nurse likes to fall back on matchups when explaining why certain guys don't get consistent playing time from night to night. I'm looking at the box score and failing to see one Warrior who would've posed a matchup problem for McCain.