Instant observations: Cavs dominate Sixers in horrific game for Tyrese Maxey, Joel Embiid

Key Highlights

• Cleveland has sputtered for most of this season, unable to live up to lofty expectations, but they punched Philly in the mouth on both ends of the floor. The Sixers’ complete inability to secure a defensive rebound was the early story of the game.
• Cleveland had eight offensive rebounds in the opening 12 minutes, and it honestly felt like more, because the Sixers managed to pick up fouls or knock the ball out of bounds to keep the ball with Cleveland even when they prevented the Cavs from grabbing the board outright.
• After the first four or five extra possessions, you began to expect that forcing a miss was simply not enough, with the Sixers outmuscled at the rim, outrun in space, and unaware of how to read a ball off the rim, based on the available evidence. Rebounding was a teamwide failure, but it’s hard not to focus on how poor Joel Embiid was to start this game as we look for a cause of their slow start.
• Cleveland stretched the Sixers out and forced constant perimeter rotations, and though Embiid was arguably good enough in the early part of possessions, he rarely got back into the play or had strong enough hands to finish the possession after the shot went up.
• Several second-chance possessions were within his power to prevent, and the Cavs either neutralized him or went around him as if he wasn’t there. AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementIt was even uglier on the offensive end, where Embiid felt completely out of sync with the game and his teammates.