Six Thoughts: No One Helps Embiid as Sixers Blow Opportunity Against Spurs

Joel Embiid apparently avoided an early injury scare en route to a strong effort against the San Antonio Spurs, but no one backed him up as the Sixers blew a critical opportunity with Victor Wembanyama out for the entire second half.

Here are six thoughts on the game.

Paul George is backing up his words

In all of the talk about how excellent George has been since returning from suspension, that he came back and said, on the record, that he was going to be more aggressive and explosive and then backed it up in every sense has not been talked about enough. He hasn't just looked better than the player the Sixers had prior to the suspension. He's looked like the George of several years ago, the perennial All-Star.

His team defense has been very good from the second he took the floor last month against the Chicago Bulls. In fact, that was the first thing that came back. But that's some combination of instinct and athleticism. You can either stay in front of your man or you can't.

The game-changer for Philadelphia has been the offensive resurgence. You either have the strength and athleticism to suppport your skills, or you don't. And George has been incredible since the second half of that Bulls game. There are levels to what each of these games means, though. Doing it against the Bulls and Washington Wizards doesn't mean as much as doing it against the Spurs does.

San Antonio has the personnel to make George's job difficult, starting with human fire hydrant Stephon Castle and passing the torch down to Devin Vassell, Harrison Barnes, Carter Bryant and others. And if George got past them, Wembanyama is always around to back up the perimeter. But George had little problem getting downhill in the first half. He bullied his way into the paint on several occasions and embraced contact for whistles. Even if he didn't crack the paint, George laced pull-up and relocation 3s over contests to keep Philadelphia competitive from beyond the arc.

The Spurs got very physical with his catch points in the second half, turning George's offense into a bunch of pivoting moves in the paint that took significant energy to even get into the shot. So an excellent first half did not carry over to the second half.

Embiid falls on his shield

After a hard fall very early in the game created some suspense, Embiid went on to have a strong night and ultimately fell on his shield while the vast majority of his teammates went missing. Whatever ill effects he felt from the early fall vanished after a brief rest in the middle of the first quarter, and Embiid returned to go move for move with Wembanyama.

Forget about the robust scoring column for a moment, Embiid had little problem moving Wembanyama off his defensive spot. He scored over rangy contests and had counter moves to the best stuff Wembanyama threw at him.

Embiid's critics will point to his approach in the second half, when Wembanyama was unavailable, and say it's an unethical way to play basketball. Nick Nurse often says the best, healthiest version of Embiid is an aggressive driver. Embiid did not have a ton of those moments in the second half. He played a perimeter-heavy game with the ball in his hands. But some of Embiid's most dominant, brilliant games involve foul-baiting. If a defender puts their hand in his space, he has every right to take advantage of that. He did.

It would also be obtuse to discount the defensive night he had. One of the lasting memories of the game will be Embiid not sliding over in rotation to help as Kelly Oubre got beat, allowing a layup to extend the Spurs' lead late in the game. But Embiid had four blocks in this game. It's a shame the next man up had little to offer in support.

One of Maxey's worst games of the season

Philadelphia's All-NBA candidate took four total shots by halftime. He made none of them. Maxey was not nearly aggressive enough with Wembanyama on the floor, and his mentality did not materially change when it was revealed the Spurs big man wouldn't be coming back after halftime.

Decisions like this one were particularly damning:

what am i watching JUST SHOOT IT pic.twitter.com/4xj8DYhzAN
— Romp (@OfficialRomp) April 7, 2026

You might have to go back to Maxey's second season in the NBA to find a time when he turns that shot down. That he hesitated and didn't accept the opportunity at a pull-up 3 off the high ball screen makes you wonder whether that pinkie finger felt right in this game. But that wasn't the only such record scratch for Maxey in this game. Aside from an early look at a wing 3 off a screen, Maxey hesitated on 3s for most of the night.

His downhill efforts were more consistent in the second half, which made sense given that San Antonio's rim defense was considerably weaker without Wembanyama. But from cross-court passes directly into Spurs hands and bad touch on most of his shots, he was off on a bad night to be off. One of the most jarring aspects of his night was that San Antonio didn't even make it all that difficult for him to catch the ball. He wasn't expensing a great deal of energy to get open. He just couldn't do much with the ball in his hands.

The Sixers failed to punish the penalty

Bryant was whistled for a foul trying to go through an Embiid screen for George with five minutes and 10 seconds left in the third quarter. That was significant because it put the Spurs in the penalty for the remainder of the third quarter, the Sixers trailing by nine and San Antonio rolling the dice on smaller lineups.

What did the Sixers do with it? Four of the Sixers' 13 (we won't even count the Dominick Barlow heave to end the third!) possessions the rest of the quarter ended with Embiid. He got two shots the rest of the quarter and went to the line for four free throws. The Sixers, mind you, shot 4-for-12 on non-heaves during that stretch. It was a complete failure to not take advantage of being in the bonus for that final five minutes.

Where was the strategy?

And yet, that might not have been Nurse's worst moment of the night

The Sixers trailed by seven points heading into the fourth quarter. Nurse went with Andre Drummond in Embiid's stead. In those three minutes and 57 seconds, Drummond failed to contest two layups and a dunk, allowing six Spurs points that helped double the Sixers' deficit by the time Embiid returned.

Extendinding Drummond an opportunity at a critical juncture of the game after how poorly he played the first time these two teams met was a game-losing decision. Maybe Adem Bona wouldn't have had a much better time. But we'll never know. All we know is that Nurse called on a guy who proved to be a detriment against the Spurs not that long ago, and it bit the Sixers again.

Nine minutes of opportunity for the Sixers to take the game, and they frankly didn't come close to getting it done.