5 Sixers thoughts: An unlikely cast of heroes snaps five-game losing streak

The input: 53 minutes of total and utter chaos, constant twists and turns, wild shots, a massive comeback, unlikely heroes emerging and unusual decisions.

The output: Sixers 107, Hornets 105 — the Sixers’ second victory of the year (and their first at home), snapping what had been a dreadful five-game losing streak.

Joel Embiid (suspension) and Tyrese Maxey (hamstring) were each sidelined for this game. The team’s lone remaining star, Paul George, made only six of his 18 shot attempts and was unavailable in overtime due to a minutes restriction. The Sixers’ remaining starters scored a combined 34 points while shooting just 11-of-26 from the field.

Somehow, head coach Nick Nurse’s team found a way to dig out a win they could not have needed any more.

The time has come to kick off the week with 5 Sixers thoughts. Let’s give flowers to all of the heroes, big and small, in the Sixers’ victory against Charlotte on Sunday night.

Jared McCain steals the show

There is no question that the star of the show was McCain, who in his ninth NBA game became the focal point of a crunch time offense and passed every test with flying colors.

“He certainly plays with a lot of confidence,” Nurse said. “And he just kept it going tonight.” 

The 20-year-old known for his ability to knock down threes connected from long range three times, but shot 7-for-10 on attempts inside the arc. The Sixers’ 16-point lead evaporated in six minutes and change of action in the fourth quarter, but the team would have lost in regulation rather than winning in overtime had it not been for McCain, who finished the game with a team-leading, career-high 27 points and forced a crucial shot clock violation against Hornets All-Star point guard LaMelo Ball when forced to defend game’s leading scorer on an island:

Minutes after leading the Sixers to a win, McCain sat in front of the media with a prized possession in his hands: the game ball, which he said Sixers assistant Rico Hines fetched and gave to Tyrese Maxey, who then awarded it to McCain. Ball in hand, he talked about the mental and psychological steps towards achieving that level of confidence and composure in high-leverage situations.

“For me, it’s just being quiet,” McCain said. “Everything’s so loud around you, so just locking in on the ball and just having a quiet mind — my psychologist calls it ‘feel the dance,’ and I just feel the flow, feel the dance… I take it moment by moment, not trying to look at the bigger picture.”

McCain often appears eager to give others a peek at the inner workings of his brain. He continued to do so at length on Friday night.

“When you’re present, I feel like you react in the moment. You feel everything that’s happening around you and you react to it. So it’s a great feeling to be present here.”

McCain’s confidence manifests itself in many ways, on and off the court, and everyone is taking notice. That includes one of the greatest players in the history of sports, who recognized McCain’s parents in the crowd during the Sixers’ road trip last week.

“Continue to block out the BS noise,” LeBron James wrote on a jersey he signed for McCain after the Sixers’ loss to the Los Angeles Lakers on Friday night. “Nothing better than working hard and simply being you!”

Most importantly, McCain’s coach sees the value of the rookie guard’s mentality.

“He’s shown nothing but confidence,” Nurse said. “In preseason games and real games, he just shows that he’s really got a knack for scoring, he’s got a knack for getting by people. He can hit a three here and there as well, he’s got some deep range. He’s not afraid.” 

Guerschon Yabusele keeps on impressing

Before McCain’s explosion, it was Yabusele who was the Sixers’ best and most important player. The team outscored Charlotte by 13 points amid Yabusele’s 31 minutes of action, during which he scored 20 points and grabbed eight rebounds while shooting 8-of-13 from the field and 2-of-4 from three-point range. Both of Yabusele’s threes were timely, as they gave literal and figurative boosts to a team that shot just 1-of-14 from beyond the arc to open the game.

Yabusele, who has been the Sixers’ backup center behind Andre Drummond with Joel Embiid sidelined, figures to factor into the rotation long-term as a power forward, Nurse has reiterated. He has maintained that Drummond will be the team’s primary backup center when Embiid returns to the floor (which could possibly happen as early as Tuesday, when the Sixers return to action against the New York Knicks in NBA Cup Group Play). But Yabusele continues to outperform Drummond, and when the second half kicked off on Sunday, it was Yabusele who stood in the middle, with Drummond on the bench.

“I just have been thinking about shaking up that starting group in the second half,” Nurse said. “We’ve gotten off to some slower third-quarter starts or third quarters in general. I just wanted to shake it up a little bit… Mostly, I just wanted to shake up our energy levels or rhythm or something, just to play a little better in the third.”

What was perhaps most interesting about Yabusele’s excellent night is this: of his eight made shots, six came on assists from George:

What does George think of the rapport he is developing with Yabusele?

“Yabu, man. He does it all,” George said. “I love the chemistry we have.”

Jeff Dowtin Jr. stays ready

Veteran Reggie Jackson had struggled in his few appearances off the bench, and Nurse opted to go with Dowtin, a two-way point guard he trusts, to lead his second unit. Dowtin immediately paid off that decision with some much-needed scoring that gave the Sixers a major lift:

“I’m just always ready,” Dowtin said. “I take the same approach to every game.”

Two-way players are eligible to be active for up to 50 NBA games before they are forced to spend the remainder of the season in the G League (unless their contract is converted to a standard NBA deal, as Dowtin’s two-way contract was last season). Dowtin has been active for five of the Sixers’ first nine games.

“[Dowtin] kind of fits with everything,” Nurse said, before explaining why he began the season with Jackson ahead of Dowtin, a player he knows very well and has a lot of belief in. “You know, you’ve got some veteran guys and you start the season, you’re going to give those veteran guys the first cracks at stuff. That’s just the way I’m going to do it, until you think you’ve given them a couple shots here and there and you’re not exactly where [you want] to be… It was time to shake it up just a little bit.”

Caleb Martin sticks with it

Martin has had a brutal start to the season on offense. He is struggling to score and failing to connect on jumpers. But the Sixers remain pleased with his tenacity and tough-minded nature — a significant component of his appeal to begin with. Martin only made one shot and two free throws in this game, but they all mattered. So did his four steals in just the first quarter alone, tying Martin’s career-high for takeaways in any single game:

Nurse said before the game that defensive connectivity was an area where his team needed to show significant improvement quickly. Sunday’s win was a major step in the right direction.

“Me, [Kelly Oubre Jr.], Caleb, we want to be as disruptive as possible, get extra possessions,” George said. “That should be a given every night: whoever we’re matched up with, it’s going to be a tough night.”

Nurse pushes the right buttons

Nurse has come under fire publicly as a result of the Sixers’ nightmarish start to the season. And while he has been dealt a brutal hand, some of it is fair: certain lineups and configurations have been puzzling, and the vast majority of a roster underwhelming relative to expectation is often a coaching issue.

Give Nurse this, though: on Sunday night, the vast majority of his calls — from riding McCain and Yabusele’s hot hand, to altering the pecking order in his center depth chart, to sliding Dowtin into the rotation — worked out for the better. When the Sixers are as short-handed as they were against the Hornets, they have little margin for error, regardless of the opponent they face.

It is crucial that Nurse puts his players in optimal positions to thrive, and on Sunday, he did just that.

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