The Sixers are struggling to make up for Joel Embiid’s absence | Film review

The 76ers are clearly a better team when MVP candidate Joel Embiid is on the floor and available to play. But, while the franchise center is out with a sore knee, they’re going to have to figure something out.

On Saturday the Portland Trail Blazers took off in the second half for a 130-115 win, outrebounding the Sixers, 53-33, including a 19-7 difference on the offensive glass.

“Therein lies the game, the offensive rebounding disparity,” Brett Brown said after the loss.

Yes, part of that can be attributed to missing the 7-foot-2 offensive and defensive power of Embiid, and the Sixers can’t always rely on him to be there to bail them out. As last season showed us, it’s hard to predict how long that will be: Embiid missed the final 16 games of the 2017-18 campaign and the first two playoff games against Miami.

That’s not to say that he will miss significant time this year but right now the Embiid-less Sixers are a mess.

Additionally, the rotation behind Embiid needs to be ironed out, and it’s clear neither Boban Marjanovic nor Amir Johnson are realistic options for the kind of space and pace that the playoffs will demand.

Jonah Bolden played in Thursday’s win against the Heat, but before that he logged four straight DNPs. Twice in Saturday’s game, he rejected Jusuf Nurkic, Portland’s leading scorer. Then, in the second half, as the Blazers started to pull away, Brown subbed in Johnson and went with small-ball lineups before going to Bolden in garbage time.

Late in the second half, he missed this wide-open three-point attempt. This is what happens when a guy isn’t as fresh because he doesn’t have consistent playing time.

That’s not to say Bolden will turn into a knock-down shooter if he plays more, but with more reps he’s bound to be more on target and more confident, and additionally, he’ll know his teammates’ spots more and be less prone to turnovers.

“Obviously at points I feel I can contribute with my abilities, but I’m not going to go against coach,” Bolden said.

When Embiid is available it’s understandable that the rest of the team won’t have to work as hard to secure rebounds, but when the big guy is not there, the Sixers have to make a team effort to crash the boards.

Too many times on Saturday, the Sixers were out of position or just standing around when the Trail Blazers were going at it full bore.

Here, with one of the Sixers small lineups, you see JJ Redick is completely mismatched trying to box out Enes Kanter. T.J. McConnell is trying to offer some help but ultimately it leads to an offensive rebound by the Blazers because Seth Curry is left unimpeded. That was the second offensive rebound of that possession for Portland which ended with Mike Scott, playing center, intentionally fouling Nurkic.

“We just didn’t do enough, obviously we didn’t do enough," Ben Simmons said.

Though Bolden might seem like the obvious choice for backup-center minutes behind Embiid, Brown seemed to indicate that once the playoffs come around, he might lean in the direction of a smaller lineup.

Here you see that, even with multiple Sixers in position, CJ McCollum still comes through with the rebound.

“Sometimes it’s a bad bounce, sometimes it’s just a bad day,” Marjanovic said.

While it’s true that sometimes, no matter how well positioned a player is, the ball can end up in another direction, there is also something to be said about effort.

“They were more aggressive, crashed harder than us, we didn’t box out. That’s really it," Bolden said.