Sixers escape with overtime loss vs. Rockets

Quentin Grimes added another dominant game to his growing collection, leading the Sixers in a wild 144-137 loss to the Houston Rockets on the second night of a back-to-back. Grimes scored 46 points to lead all scorers on Monday night, narrowly avoiding a bad win for the tank.

Here’s what I saw.

The Good

— The Sixers scored 78 points on the Rockets, the league’s second-best defense, in the first half. They made 15 freaking threes in 24 minutes, a number larger than their total made threes in 46/67 games coming into the evening. Philadelphia shot 61.7 percent from the field, a mind-boggling number for a group that you felt would have been lucky to keep the game within 15 points. It’s a performance that defies belief, but above all else, you could sense these guys had a hell of a lot of fun out there. Can you blame them?

This was the basketball equivalent of an “everybody eats” night at Citizens Bank Park, with nearly every available guy getting involved with the barrage from deep. Ricky Council IV, Justin Edwards, Quentin Grimes, and Jeff Dowtin all made at least three threes against the Rockets, and they had big, beaming smiles on their faces. This group was having a blast, and playing a pretty fun brand of basketball on top of that. Move the ball, trust your teammate, and keep cutting off-ball if you’re not doing anything else productive.

Was a lot of this just unsustainable shooting? Of course it was. Does that make it any less fun to watch Jalen Hood-Schifino show the makings of a movement shooting package? Only if you care about their draft pick more than the current product on the floor. But more seriously, yes, it’s a delight to watch a group of young guys playing hard, playing for each other, and ignoring the black cloud that has hung over Philadelphia all season.

— Boy, Grimes is on the run of his basketball life right now. He is just killing opposing teams off of the dribble, attacking space with gusto, and punishing late closeouts with quick-trigger threes. If he was making free throws at the rate expected of a two-guard scorer, we’d be flying into hyperbolic territory trying to analyze his performances.

As is, he has had more big games in a Sixers uniform than Paul George had with a half-season’s worth of time and a much more talented supporting cast to help him out. Teams are still sort of daring Grimes to consistently win one-on-one matchups, and with a spread-out floor, Grimes is making light work of that coverage. However he needs to get it done, Grimes is finding a way.

And the best part is, he’s doing more than simply putting it in the hoop. Grimes pulled down double-digit rebounds against Houston and sprinkled in some playmaking, taking a backseat to their other shooters when the other guys had it rolling. Another big night without having to be a selfish gunner, and we love that around these parts.

(It seems borderline impossible that Dallas gave this guy away for Caleb Martin, who has been hurt all year, and then you consider that this is Grimes’ fourth team in four years. Absurd!)

— I have a lot of respect for the fight Jeff Dowtin has shown here over the last couple of weeks, and he almost literally took the fight to Houston in the second half. Dowtin wrestled with the bigger and stronger Tari Eason for control of the ball during a stoppage. That quick tie-up led to a bigger fracas when Jalen Green and Jalen Hood-Schifino exchanged words, and the former shoved JHS to pick up a technical foul for his trouble.

In any case, Dowtin is not anyone’s idea of an enforcer — he’s a wiry guard who is fairly soft-spoken most of the time. Detrimental as his good games may be to their macro goals, it has been cool watching him fill a leadership role on this team (and fill it up!) with so many other guys out and injured.

— A week ago, Oshae Brissett was playing for the Long Island Nets and was probably unsure if another NBA opportunity would ever come. Monday night, he spent the first half making light work of Houston’s All-Star center, Alperen Sengun. Insane arc for him, even if it’s only a brief moment in the spotlight.

You had to laugh at the concept of Brissett playing “starting center” right up until he took the floor and got to work. Brissett had 10 points and five rebounds at halftime, with a pair of offensive boards that came from nothing more than grit and determination. The Rockets took their rebounding advantage for granted in the early stages of this game, setting the stage for Brissett to come in and land a proverbial right hook to get Philadelphia rolling.

The Bad

— I’m all for celebrating nice performances from young men trying to make it in this league, but I am not going to assign much meaning to role players making a boatload of ridiculous, contested shots on long twos. These guys are dropping in BS fadeaway jumpers and turnarounds from areas they would never have the opportunity to shoot from in a normal scenario. I am not going to suddenly start believing that they should do so because they’re playing with house money on a zombie team.

The Ugly

— Watching the Sixers play a free-flowing, cohesive offense with this group of players makes me even madder about the absolute slop I have watched for most of this season. And before anyone tries to get on their high horse about an individual player/their star of choice, it says bad things about just about all of them.

It doesn’t reflect well on Joel Embiid that the offense came to a screeching halt when he was in the lineup. It doesn’t look good for Paul George that G-League players can step into the lineup and play with more assertiveness than their $50 million wing. It doesn’t say much for Tyrese Maxey’s ability to lead an offense that they looked like a rudderless ship with him controlling the team. Nick Nurse having no coherent plan for the team with the stars is bad. Kelly Oubre ball-stopping the offense to hunt his own is bad. It’s all terrible.

And then there are all the little things, you know, those things the Sixers didn’t do all season. I understand that the Rockets had a natural letdown playing against this version of the Sixers, which probably wouldn’t happen with more name-brand players available, but the Sixers deserve their portion of the credit for flying around the floor, grinding, and doing their best with what they had. You can’t say the same for the full-strength group, which has toggled between “marginal effort” and “for who for what?” throughout this season.

Good for the guys who were out there on Monday. Go to hell, guys who made up most of the rotation for the rest of the year.

— The Rockets very clearly did not give a damn about this game for 2.5 quarters. Ime Udoka gave them multiple opportunities to pick the rope back up and pull, and they finally decided to take him up on it when the Sixers got out to a 25-point lead in the third. Fair enough.

Alperen Sengun was so bad and disinterested that Ime Udoka pulled him in the third, never to be seen again. I respect a coach having the guts to make that kind of move. He brought him back at the perfect time, saving the game at the end of regulation.

ALPEREN SENGUN CLUTCH TIP-IN TO TIE IT!!!

FINAL 5 SECONDS COMING UP ON NBA LEAGUE PASS. pic.twitter.com/Nyw6lnbe53

— NBA (@NBA) March 18, 2025

— Tari Eason went full bozo mode in the fourth quarter. Never go full bozo mode. Fred Van Vleet joined him a few minutes later with one of the easiest Flagrant 2 calls that has ever been made.

— The Raptors are sitting top-five picks who are pillars of their franchise and their young cornerstone guard for whole games, but also in fourth quarters when games get tight. The Sixers are letting Quentin Grimes barbeque anyone and everyone and drive his free agency price higher while allowing him to actively hurt their draft positioning. They’re also — even though it ended up helping the tank cause — doing things like fouling up three with less than five seconds left.

This organization loves to half-ass everything they can, is what I’m saying. It’s one thing for the players to play hard, but the organization not completely committing to do what’s best for the long-term is just ridiculous.