Four days after their first preseason game — a bludgeoning of the NBL’s New Zealand Breakers — the Sixers played their first exhibition contest against another NBA team on Friday night, as they faced off against the Minnesota Timberwolves in Iowa — a homecoming for Sixers head coach Nick Nurse against his old friend, Timberwolves head coach Chris Finch.

Instant observations: Young talent on display as Sixers win preseason opener

On the Sixers’ side, the headliner was the team debut of nine-time All-Star Paul George, who along with Joel Embiid, sat out Monday night’s preseason opener in Philadelphia. Embiid did not travel with the team to Iowa, but it remains insistent there is no serious concern with the former NBA MVP and his knee.

What do you need to know after the Sixers’ 121-111 loss on Friday night? Here’s a rundown…

First Quarter

• Normally during the preseason, these game recaps are broken up into four quarters, with bullet point details about all of the relevant happenings during the game. I either watch the game in person and write from an arena or watch on television and write from home. Only this game was not just being played in Iowa, but it was not being carried by any television networks.

On Friday morning, it became apparent that NBA League Pass would stream the in-arena feed of the action for subscribers. While this may have seemed like an ideal pivot to most, as a grizzled League Pass veteran, this seemed like a catastrophe waiting to happen. And that turned out to be an underestimation.

By the start of the second quarter, a graphic reading “GAME IS EXPERIENCING TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES” was on display for the sixth time of the game. It was an unmitigated catastrophe — and the first quarter and change were basically unwatchable as a result. So, all first-quarter takeaways are solely based on the box score and play-by-play data.

• With Embiid out but all other Sixers available, Nurse went with a starting five that figures to become a frequently-used lineup in 2024-25: Tyrese Maxey, Kelly Oubre Jr., George, Caleb Martin and Andre Drummond. Famous last words: if the Sixers can handle minutes without Embiid by stacking their other best players in lineups, perhaps this will be the year they don’t post embarrassing Net Rating discrepancies when Embiid is on the floor versus when he is off the floor.  

• It certainly seems like Guerschon Yabusele has pole position on the third-string center spot for the Sixers. For the second straight preseason game, he has backed up Drummond at the five. The fact that rookie Adem Bona is not next up behind Drummond in the center depth chart is not a surprise; Yabusele being ahead of KJ Martin in that department might be a small one.

“As far as the mentality, I think it’s the same,” Yabusele said of playing center as opposed to playing power forward after Monday’s game. “It’s just as far as the game-planning is going to be different. On defense, I have to be a little bit more active and be able to help the guys, then at the four, I think it’s easier for me because we get to switch positions with the other guys.”

• Yabusele and Kyle Lowry made up Nurse’s first pair of substitutions in the first quarter, replacing Caleb Martin and Drummond. That meant the Sixers were going incredibly small with their second lineup of the game, a unit comprised of Maxey and Lowry in the backcourt and Oubre and George as the forwards with Yabusele manning the middle. The lineup got even smaller 80 seconds later, when Eric Gordon replaced Oubre.

All-Star bigs Julius Randle and Rudy Gobert were both out for Minnesota, which also played small for much of the game. It would be fascinating to see if Nurse had enough faith in lineups like these to use them in regular season games.

Second Quarter

• Minnesota’s offense dominated the second quarter, posting 40 points and expanding their lead to 17 points by halftime. It was largely stemmed by excellent offense from the Timberwolves, though there were moments in which it was clear that the Sixers are a team made up of a bunch of players learning how to coexist with one another.

• Despite being on the wrong end of a drastic point differential, the second quarter still might have been an overall positive for the Sixers. George started to show every bit of the star quality that has netted him a career of accomplishments which will one day land him in the Hall of Fame. His scoring diversity was on full display, as George entered intermission with 18 points on 6-12 shooting from the field and 4-8 shooting from beyond the arc. Two of those four first-half triples were pull-up, above-the-break threes with immense levels of difficulty.

The ironic part of this is that these are routine shots for George to take and make, but it would be basically incomprehensible for any Sixers wing during Embiid’s career to even attempt them. George’s ability to score in so many different ways is a massive asset itself, but his pull-up three-point shooting in particular is going to add so much to Nurse’s offense, both in terms of quality and optionality.

Third Quarter

• Unlike in Monday’s game, the Sixers’ starters and key reserves saw second-half action on Friday night — and they made major inroads on Minnesota’s lead immediately. George scored five early points in the third quarter, but it was Maxey who led the way, drilling a pair of threes among his other contributions. The Sixers’ starters seemed to lock in on the defensive end for their six and a half minutes or so of action in the second half, forcing plenty of Minnesota turnovers that enabled them to leak out into transition. The team has adopted “The Ball Wins” as a slogan designed to emphasize the importance of winning the possession battle by leading in the turnover and rebounding margins.

• Nurse began to go deeper into his bench midway through the third quarter — most notably calling upon Ricky Council IV, who did not play in the first half of this one after a very strong preseason debut on Monday, and veteran point guard Reggie Jackson. Something of note: on Monday, Nurse used two-way point guard Jeff Dowtin Jr. — someone he called a “run-the-team guy” during the team’s training camp in The Bahamas — ahead of Jackson, despite the veteran having a standard NBA contract.

Sixers two-way guard Jeff Dowtin Jr. ready for second year with team: ‘He just does a lot of things really solid’

Jackson had an excellent showing himself on Monday, displaying the sort of scoring prowess that has paved the way for a career as long as the one he has enjoyed. This time around, it was Jackson who checked into the game before Dowtin, replacing Maxey. Dowtin would replace Jackson early in the final frame.

Fourth Quarter

• Rookie Jared McCain just keeps on impressing. Early in the fourth quarter, the guard out of Duke drained a pair of triples in a 56-second span. It is already clear from two preseason games that McCain’s ball-handling and defense are not in ideal places — which was to be expected, even after plenty of excitement stemming from training camp about his on-ball juice — but his ability to catch and shoot from beyond the arc is already so lethal that McCain might be capable of contributing at the NBA level a lot sooner than expected.

Jared McCain impressing at Sixers training camp: ‘He’s a scrapper’ 

• What to make of Council remains unclear. When the second-year player is at his best, he is already capable of swinging quarters — or even games — in the Sixers’ favor. There is no doubt that Council’s work ethic is working in his favor as well. But the next step — as Nurse said after a practice earlier this week — is refining his decision-making. Council needs to prove to Nurse and the rest of the coaching staff that they can rely on him to make sound judgments on both ends of the floor time and time again. Council’s fluctuation from excellence to consistently confounding mistakes does not just happen from game to game, but within games. His development on that front will be critical as he looks to establish himself as a rotation regular this season, but Council is without question far ahead of the average sophomore player who went undrafted. Make no mistake about it: the Sixers have something here.

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