No second-half dive this time as Quentin Grimes leads Sixers past the Trail Blazers
Grimes (31 points) and VJ Edgecombe (12 rebounds) both had career nights, and Justin Edwards continued his strong stretch of games since Tyrese Maxey’s injury.
The Sixers picked up one of their best wins since the trade deadline on Sunday, beating the Portland Trail Blazers, 109-103.
Quentin Grimes and VJ Edgecombe had career nights, and Justin Edwards continued his strong stretch of games since Tyrese Maxey’s injury.
Here’s what we learned from the Sixers’ win:
Second-half surge
The Sixers have been historically bad in the third quarter this season. But against the Blazers on Sunday, the Sixers outscored the Blazers, 29-22, out of the break to end the quarter with a six-point lead.
After their win over the Nets on Saturday, Nick Nurse said the Sixers lacked energy in the second half while allowing Brooklyn to nearly pull off the upset. Against Portland, Grimes led the Sixers’ second-half charge. He scored a season-high 31 points, including a stretch of 10 straight, to help the Sixers build a double-digit lead in the fourth quarter.
» READ MORE: Sixers rookie VJ Edgecombe navigating new role as a top scoring option: ‘It’s all a learning process’
At the end of last season, Grimes played some of the best basketball of his career in the absence of the Sixers’ other stars, and he’s doing it again this year in Maxey’s stead.
Edgecombe also grabbed a career-best 12 rebounds in his first double-double since Nov. 20.
“We know we’ve got to run, especially with [Donovan] Clingan sitting in the paint,” Edgecombe said. “You can’t go down there, for real, if we’re being completely honest, so we knew we had to run and start passing. We just had to take any chance we could get for an easy layup or dunk.”
Andre Drummond returns
It’s been a rough year for Andre Drummond, especially defensively. Against the massive Blazers’ front court, he was going to be a crucial piece of the Sixers’ game plan in his return from back spasms that sidelined him for two games.
» READ MORE: The Sixers’ injuries are mounting. Now they must focus on avoiding a repeat of last season’s unraveling.
But Drummond grabbed 17 rebounds in one of his best performances of the season. The Sixers were a team-high +14 in Drummond’s 35 minutes on the floor.
“It’s huge,” Nurse said of Drummond’s minutes. “Probably his best game. He looked really fresh and was great. I thought the biggest thing was he just plugged the paint. They maybe got one lob behind us tonight when we played him there, it was non-stop.”
Three-point shooting
The Sixers went 3-for-25 from three-point range against the Nets. They had already improved on that mark by the end of the first half against Portland, making four three-pointers on 14 attempts.
Maxey, the Sixers’ all-time leader in made three-pointers, is out injured for at least the next two weeks. Paul George is still suspended for 10 more days, and the Sixers dealt Jared McCain to the Thunder at the deadline (McCain has shot 42.3% from three-point range since the trade).
NBA teams, on average, shoot 37 three-pointers per game. Maxey alone averaged 8.9. Having him out of the lineup takes a huge chunk out of the Sixers’ usual three-point shooting, leaving most of it into the hands of Grimes, Edgecombe, and Cam Payne, who have struggled from deep.
On Sunday, Edwards was the Sixers’ biggest success from three, going 3 for 5.
