3 76ers takeaways from preseason vs. Celtics

The Philadelphia 76ers continued their preseason with a matchup against the defending champions, the Boston Celtics. Most of the veteran players rested on the second night of a back-to-back and it showed. Boston went up by 22 early on and, unsurprisingly, never looked back. Final score: 139-89.

Paul George repped his Sixers threads in a real game for the first time yesterday night in a loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves. He played very well, though Philly’s porous defense in the first half laid the foundation for a defeat. George, Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey, Caleb Martin, Kelly Oubre Jr., Kyle Lowry, Andre Drummond, Eric Gordon and Reggie Jackson were kept out but Boston, who hasn’t played since Sunday, had most of its key players on deck, leading to significantly unbalanced lineups. At least Kristaps Porzingis and Al Horford were also out and the broadcast didn’t lag out numerous times.

Having a back-to-back in the preseason is extra wild but the Sixers still had one all the same. Here are three takeaways from their matchup with the Celtics.

1. Jared McCain looks like he belongs

McCain had free reign to take control of this game with so many players above him in the pecking order sitting out. He did that on offense but continued to play hard in all facets of the game. On the list of reasons for Sixers fans to keep watching this game, the rookie occupied the top 10 spots on the list — and legitimately looked really good.

The Sixers' first-round pick fought on rebounds, snagging one away on the defensive end from Jaylen Brown early in the game. He boxed out and scrapped for every miss that came his way. He defended as best he could, generating a few takeaways, and never let the scoreboard diminish his effort.

McCain missed most of his first few looks and shot poorly from deep but he made some nifty buckets in the early goings. He froze Luke Kornet in his shoes to scoop a layup underneath him and then pivoted around Derrick White to score with his left hand. In the second quarter, serving as the lead guard without Jeff Dowtin Jr. by his side, he got a righty layup from high off the glass to fall.

The Sixers were obviously under-equipped for this game but even still, they made it very tough for McCain to get anything going. Dowtin did the best job of getting things organized and no one else around McCain looked super composed going at the defense. McCain, with an array of crafty moves, overcame his lack of explosive athleticism and hit some nice shots over the most imposing perimeter defense in the NBA. Despite being hounded by White, one of the best defenders in the sport, he never shied away.

The final stat line for McCain in 32 minutes: 20 points, three rebounds, three assists, three steals, 9-21 field-goal shooting, 1-8 three-point shooting.

2. Guerschon Yabusele will have to get minutes at PF, right?

Through the first three preseason games, Yabusele has played center. He has been the primary option behind Drummond and started at the five in this game. Nick Nurse has mentioned his positional flexibility before but he said that he was mostly suited to be a power forward. So far, he hasn’t played at that spot this preseason.

It would have been harder to get Yabusele minutes at the four with the 76ers' first- and second-string center out but not impossible. Playing him next to KJ Martin, who has also occasionally served as a small-ball five, doesn’t count. Adem Bona was still active for this game. The chance to overlap their minutes for even a little bit was passed by, as was rolling Yabusele out with Max Fiedler.

Although Yabu's floor spacing was valuable at center and he played hard, he doesn’t appear to be vertically imposing enough to be a center for long stretches. Everything about this game was made extra difficult for the Sixers, so no takeaways from this game are immensely meaningful. But even going against a third-string center in Kornet, the Philly defense was very vulnerable down low.

Against his former NBA team, Yabusele scored eight points and made two of his four three-point tries. After an ugly miss, he came back down and made his next two looks. He makes passes quickly, keeping the ball moving and only looking to get something for himself if he’s in or close to the paint. His performance was decent even if his candidacy to be a small-ball five is becoming flimsier.

3. Preseason scheduling is so silly sometimes

NBA teams craft their own preseason schedules in a way that The Athletic's Mike Vorkunov broke down in depth and compared to college football. The main question on everyone’s mind coming into this game was raised abundantly after Boston's starters mowed down Philly’s third-stringers and fringe NBA guys: why would the Sixers schedule a back-to-back in the preseason?

Not only was this a back-to-back but one that started in Des Moines and culminated in Boston. This road trip also includes a game in Atlanta two days later. That’s a lot of miles in a short time span for even a regular-season game. But Philly chose this schedule.

The Celtics (and the Denver Nuggets) opened up the preseason in Abu Dhabi before everyone else, so they didn’t want to come right back home and play again. They understandably wanted to reacclimate to the time zone and take a break after the trip. But waiting almost a week for their next game feels like a lot.

Joe Mazzulla playing his starters into the second half, even with the insurmountable lead, made sense. The Celtics want to ramp them up for the regular season and playing them just one shift might not have sufficed. The team probably didn’t want its players inactive for over a week, so getting in reps against a glorified G League roster was preferable to ramping them back up after so much time off.

The Sixers played the Timberwolves in the home of their G League affiliate, the Iowa Wolves, which was a homecoming for head coach Nick Nurse. They understandably wouldn’t want their key players playing on the second night of a back-to-back in the preseason. Even if more veterans rested for this game than previously anticipated, Philly intentionally left itself without most of its rotation players. Some new players got the chance to play together but plenty of others watched from the bench in street clothes.

The most realistic assumption is that Philly wanted a longer look at its fringe players. It wanted to give McCain and other young guys a chance to play significant minutes against NBA competition — the best the league has to offer, at that. In doing so, they got to walk in the shoes of the New Zealand Breakers for a night, watching as the Celtics ran up the score in no time. That’s basketball, Suzyn.

Next up for the 76ers' preseason is a Monday game against the Atlanta Hawks.