Another Rollercoaster Night...

Late in the first quarter tonight, the Sixers down 33-16 in their own building. Toronto, they'd already run off a 12-point run. The Sixers, they clawed back, but then the Raptors ran off 14 more. This is a Raptor team already playing without Scottie Barnes and Kawhi Leonard. They came in with a losing record. It was two nights after the Boston disaster. Lose this one, it'll be three losses in four in a row. You could feel the whole place waiting at that. point for this to be a Sixers collapse and spiral downward. Never happened, though. We rallied, boys. It was a roller coaster, but this one ended with all smiles. The Sixers, they ended up winning by 11. They took one punch, settled down, and then put on a wallop and ended up fighting back. The two guys at the center of it all, the two guys that we needed to have a great night tonight to prove that they are who we thought they were, kind of vibes for the Sixers. Jalen Brown after the worst game of his season and Anfernee Simons coming off the bench. So I think that this proves that Tuesday night, not a warning sign, just a statistically weird night for the highs and the lows for the Sixers. Closing out the first quarter where Toronto really had owned things. You could sense that it was just starting to shift for the Sixers. Emmanuel quickly, he hit a three, drew a foul for a four-point play, then got another and one less than 90 seconds later. Then R.J. Barrett, two threes in 29 seconds. Toronto put up 33 points in the first quarter. Then Simons got involved, came off the bench, started... Out with a 25-footer right at the horn to end the first quarter, then early in the second quarter hits that nasty step-back three that we knew from him, and then... They lit up that 15-0 run that was our counterpunch to the best that Toronto had to throw at us in that stretch. Toronto, they go five minutes, 55 seconds, 15-point run, then 5.55. Something weird about the numbers tonight. But they go that without a field goal. So the defense started to answer and step up as well as the scoring. The game didn't flip right away, but that was certainly the stretch where I think the momentum, like I said, it's a roller coaster, some ups and downs, some ebbs and flows, but that's where everybody was waiting for the collapse. But on this one, it never came. The teams, they traded the lead all throughout the second quarter and went into the locker room tied at 60. There were 25 lead changes actually in this one before the Sixers finally pulled away for good. Toronto's last lead of the night was 67 to 66 early in the third quarter. Joel Embiid. Decent game from our boy. He got a pass from V.J. Edgecombe. One of his multiple dunks that he put down. A little bit of a highlight in real night. Him getting back in the paint and scoring the way that he knows how to. Toronto, they fought back a little bit, tying it at 81 left in the third quarter. This is where, again, being a rollercoaster night, we were tied with the Celtics in the third quarter, and it went horrible, but this is... This is where instead of the spiral and the collapse, Tyrese Maxey kept attacking the rim. He had a great night. He finished with 27. 12 free throw charity stripe attempts. VJ Edgecombe, he barely missed a triple-double. 15 points, 8 rebounds, 8 assists. The shots were falling, and I think that that, to me, is the perfect answer to what happened on Tuesday. Bad shooting night, exceptionally bad for somebody, but in general, a bad shooting night, and we had it both. I mean, shorter shots from Embiid, deeper, longer shots from Anfernee Simons, 9-22 from the field in the first quarter for the Sixers, but then after that, 56% shooting clip from the field for the rest of the night, 31 assists for 46 baskets. The Sixers, they dominated a 36-27 score split in both the second and third quarters. They got. A lot of actual offensive rebounds, second chance points. They won by four for points in the paint. They beat them on the fast break. It was a good night all around. And like I said, once they got ahead, they stayed ahead, and it was kind of, they put it away from there. Toronto, they did lead for that early chunk, but then right in the middle of that second quarter was the guy that everybody had been worrying about after Jalen Brown had, like I said, He said his worst. Outing the plus minus of minus 27 against the Celtics on Tuesday. It was bad, but then he scored. Scored really well tonight, and he looked really good, and he, I think, kind of maybe erased some of the juju and the demons and had the answer of saying that, man, that was just a weird one against the Celtics and the Paul George scoring and this, that, and the other. It was a good excising of demons, I thought, from Jalen Brown. While he did not have a fantastic start to this game, and again, this without First quarter, like I said, everybody, I think, was, I was at least, I don't know if I should speak for everybody, but I was on edge of, like, what's that meme from Grand Theft Auto? Ah, bleep, here we go again. Brown, two points in that first quarter, both of them coming at the free throw line, but then 10 points in the second quarter. Looking nice, he nailed some nice fadeaway stepbacks. The 10 points was a team high in that second quarter. He got the layup to take the lead early in the third quarter. Three more buckets after the break. Dude had two steals, a block. He played just an all-around holistically good game, shooting 8 of 15 as he finished with 18 points. Turned it into a plus 9. Wasn't a perfect night, necessarily. I'm not saying that he had his best game ever. Had a couple turnovers, five turnovers. But all in all, even though this was under his season average of scoring, It's one of those where it erased some doubts, instilled some confidence. Tonight was never going to be entirely... As long as we got the win tonight, it, to me, was not about any one individual person's scoring line. He showed up when we needed him to. We erased the Boston game memory, or at least right now put it out of our mouths, and we just didn't have a... I didn't leave this game with a bad taste in my mouth from... Thinking like, oh, this is still some lingering stank. If you liked seeing Jalen Brown hit that bucket and you want more Sixers coverage, make sure you hit that, follow, like, subscribe. Got tons of content coming for you every day. What do you say we talk about the best plus minus in the whole game, though? Mr. Anthony Simons coming off the bench to, again, answer some questions against the Celtics. We got outscored bad by the bench and for Simon's plus 22 in just 23 minutes on the night, he replaces Quentin Grimes. Had, you know, his one simple job seems to be this season. Come in after Maxi and score a bunch of buckets. And that might be me oversimplifying things, but it's what we brought him here to do. You guys all offseason have said that he is a walking bucket. Through his first five games this season, he averaged only 8.8 points per game. Now he's up over 10 on his last five games. He's shooting. Dang near 50%. Made five of his six threes tonight. And none of those came in garbage time either. That was him shooting with the... He was a necessary part of... I'm not going to call it the comeback, but he was a necessary part of the counterpunch that we needed to get this one put away. The whole second unit then was also energized by him and seemed to follow his lead. KCP. He was a plus 21, 27 minutes off the bench. Jabari Walker, 9 points, 8 rebounds. He is trending upwards, in my opinion, for those rebounds on the offensive side. We've got to take it what we can get from anybody. We outscored Toronto's bench by 11, and that proved to be an absolute necessity because Toronto had their starters and stars in there trying all night in the second half to claw back into this one. This was not Toronto waving the white flag on us. Walker opened up the fourth quarter with a 3-12 point lead. R.J. Barrett went to work. He closed out with 31 points, so a good effort. Made 13 of his 20 shots. Mr. Quickly got in on it with 26 points. There were some guys really, really feasting out there. As much as we can say, oh, they didn't have Kawhi or whoever, Scottie Barnes, this, that, and the other, this was a Toronto team that I think that this is a good win for us In terms of... How we got tested, how we got it done tonight. There were some moments in there where it was kind of like, again, this is where things have slipped away from us, but I can't underscore enough, it didn't tonight. And no matter how it looked in terms of who was on the court when it didn't or what the exact score was, I think that to me, coming off of the loss against Boston and then having this one be one where it could have slipped away, we could have watched this season pick up some bad juju, but Simmons closes out strong. And Embiid had himself a pretty decent night. We put Tuesday's loss, I think, fully behind us. And now we got another night off until we take on a game this weekend. So this will be a week where hopefully we get more and Embiid coming up in the next one. Get LeBron back. Get back after it. Good game, all in all. Bit of a rollercoaster against Toronto. Thank you, everybody, for tuning in to another episode of Sixers Digest. Like, subscribe, comment, share, follow, all those other YouTube-y buttons. Until next time, hang in there, folks. It's going to be a rollercoaster of a season. We'll talk to you soon.