3 observations: Seth Curry, Shake Milton lead Sixers past Cavaliers
The Philadelphia 76ers were looking to get some revenge against the Cleveland Cavaliers on Thursday as they had not yet beaten them in either of their previous two games. Thanks to a big effort by their guards, they were finally able to knock off the Cavs.
Shake Milton hopped off the bench and poured in 27 points on 5-for-7 shooting from deep and Seth Curry had 19 points and he was 5-for-10 from deep as the Sixers beat the Cavaliers 114-94. The win finishes Philadelphia up at 4-2 on a 6-game road trip without Joel Embiid which is a terrific trip.
Tobias Harris added 12 points, Danny Green had 11 points and six rebounds, Dwight Howard added 18 and 15 rebounds, and Ben Simmons had five on 2-for-11 shooting, 13 rebounds, and five assists.
Here are the three observations from the win:
Aggressive Curry
This has been a sticking point with Curry all season. He was brought in here to take and make open 3-point shots and he did so in this one. He took five triples in the opening quarter and that is exactly what he needs to do on a nightly basis. There was one instance where he was “semi-open” coming off a screen and he knocked it down with no hesitation. Curry can obviously out the ball on the floor and he has shown that skill on multiple occasions in Philadelphia as his pick-and-roll and pick-and-pop game with the bigs has been helpful. Philadelphia has been the beneficiary of that skill this season, but he also cannot pass up the open looks from deep. He took advantage of that on Thursday.
Milton saving the bench
The bench unit really was really not good to begin this game on the offensive end as they missed a lot of open looks, but Milton was the one who was able to find a groove. He made all three of his triples in the first half and that is a shot that he has been struggling with all season. If Milton can get into a groove from deep, then watch out as that then sets up other parts of his game. He is then able to get to the basket against a crowding defender and use his size in a good way. Give Howard credit as he was active around the basket down low to give Milton some help in the second half, but outside of those two, it was a tough night for the bench on offense. What the bench did, however, was play excellent defense and that is something that the team can build on moving forward. The bench played pretty well on defense against the Denver Nuggets in the previous game and their effort helped the Sixers really pull away in this one and get the win.
Simmons' continued offensive struggles
The Sixers are supposed to have Embiid return on Saturday as the team returns home after this trip and while the team as a whole will obviously benefit from that, Simmons might be the one person who will benefit the most individually is Simmons. His offensive numbers have been down since the All-Star break and it did not get much better against the Cavs as he shot just 2-for-10 in the first half and he was not as aggressive when given the chance. It seemed like he settled a lot rather than attack. The positive one can take from this is that he was, at least, aggressive and he was taking shots. He also stuffed the stat sheet in other areas as he usually does. The thing is, the shots he decided to take were strange looks. For example, e settled for a fade-away jumper instead of attacking the smaller Matthew Dellavedova and he would shy away from contact on some drives.
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