PHILADELPHIA — The sword the 76ers have chosen for 2024-25 is double-edged, and their opening opponent placed that in stark relief.
It wasn’t so much the 124-109 handling but who meted it out. Yes, a fellow Eastern Conference contender in the Milwaukee Bucks, but one that fell short in its meshing of stars in Year 1.
Wednesday was the 66th game that Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard played together. The Bucks went 44-21 with the two stars last year, the first season that Lillard, acquired from Portland, joined the two-time NBA MVP in seeking to recapture the glory of their 2021 championship. Those games last year didn’t include the six in which the third-seeded Bucks were dumped from the playoffs by Indiana, Antetokounmpo out with a leg injury.
What the Sixers saw Wednesday was what a star tandem can do, with the compounding advantage of a commodity the Sixers seem to constantly lack: Time.
Doc Rivers, the Bucks’ coach for less than a year, has seen that evolution of Lillard and Antetokounmpo. Lillard had an effortless 30 points, plus nine rebounds and six assists. Antetokounmpo went for 25-14-7 in 31 minutes, orchestrating six double-figures scorers, 53 percent from the field and 43 percent from deep.
“I think the biggest thing is they’ve had a whole year together, they’ve had a whole summer together,” Rivers said. “Just continue to be more comfortable. I don’t think it’s as easy as, neither one of them had a Hall of Famer next to them and now they do. I think they’ve been great.”
It all looked easy, comfortable, familiar – in a way that seems a long way off for Tyrese Maxey, Paul George and Joel Embiid.
It was Game 1, where any accomplishment would’ve been trifling and any concern is preliminary. But until at least Game 4, Embiid won’t play. He and George, out with a knee bruise, are unlikely to play back-to-backs, of which the club has 15, to stay fresh for the postseason. That creates a dilemma for coach Nick Nurse on how to approach games – load up both stars to get minutes together, or divide and conquer for that minor matter that is postseason qualification and seeding?
Delivering Embiid healthy to the playoffs is paramount. But wouldn’t it be a uniquely Sixers’ irony if Embiid gets there ready to contribute and the team is so disjointed from lack of playing time together that it doesn’t matter?
The watchword is “continuity,” and you can hear the clock faintly ticking in the background at the Center already. The science is inexact on what workload Embiid’s body can endure, and the cohesion mystery is just as foggy. The Sixers have shuffled through so many discreet eras in Embiid’s tenure – Jimmy Butler, James Harden, Ben Simmons, the erstwhile Tobias Harris All-Star campaign – that continuity has always eluded. Maxey, George and Embiid are committed, at least in their statements, in ways others haven’t been. But that doesn’t translate to the court until they all get there.
The Sixers last year were notoriously 16-27 without Embiid. Maxey and Kelly Oubre were the only two to play in each of the last two season-opening losses to Milwaukee. Everyone is new, and they’re tasked with learning how to play without Embiid and George, then with them, then possibly with some combination of the two, even before the rigors of a season present whatever injuries it may.
All this while knowing that though talent makes a difference in the postseason, so does a team’s comfort and cohesiveness in pressure moments. And there’s the complication of getting there: The 76ers are certainly a playoff team, but without Embiid and/or George, this isn’t a top-four team in a loaded Eastern Conference, a reality that last year’s battle through the play-in tournament should make clear.
“It’s early, and just so happens both of them are out,” Nurse was saying pre-game Wednesday. “We’re going to need some continuity at some point, definitely. So we look forward to getting them both on the floor and getting as many games as we can together.”
Maxey, the incessant stalwart who turns 24 next month, is the constant. But even that comes at a price. He chastised himself for a 10-for-31 shooting performance despite a game-high 25 points against the Bucks, expressing frustration at “trying to be aggressive without using as much energy.” Until the others return, it will fall on Maxey’s shoulders. Often last year, it was too much of an ask in the regular season, brilliant though he was against the New York in the playoffs. When you design a team with Oubre in mind as the fourth offensive option, for instance, and then task him with being the second option most nights, the adjustment can be difficult, especially when there’s no working relationship from years’ past to fall back on.
“I think our offense could be better, just the rhythm, the pace, the spacing of everything and us just fine-tuning and getting to know the new pieces and us playing together,” Oubre said. “I think that we can find better shots each and every time down in court, because we have so many weapons. We’ve got to keep growing and keep doing better.”
All that is true. But for the 76ers to get where they want to go, that learning process may have to happen multiple different times with different personnel groupings, all in the hope that it comes together in time for the games that matter.
Contact Matthew De George at [email protected].
