Trendon Watford notches first triple-double as Sixers hold off Raptors

Philadelphia — Nick Nurse provided his coaching staff with four options.

They would vote on the starting lineup for Saturday's game against the Toronto Raptors.

It's a way for Nurse to seek input from his trusted partners.

The winning lineup featured Trendon Watford, who has been excellent since healing from a hamstring injury that kept him sidelined for the preseason and first few games of the regular season.

Watford was informed that he would be a starter at Saturday morning shootaround.

The result?

Watford notched his first career triple-double. 20 points, 17 rebounds and 10 assists. He catalyzed a Sixers victory in the first game of the team's season-long celebration of the 2001 NBA Finals team.

Nurse's staff reminded him of their vote for Watford after the game.

"Another shoutout for them," Nurse joked to reporters.

At least the Sixers got the bad quarter out of the way early on Saturday. Toronto benefitted from some favorable shooting variance. But Nurse deployed units sans Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey that could not rebound or handle the basketball cleanly. It led to run-outs for the Raptors.

After two fistfuls of three-point shots and a slew of fouls, Philadelphia trailed by 10 heading into the second quarter.

The Raptors expanded that lead to 14 just a few minutes later.

"Sometimes you tell the guys how fast they're playing and how fast they're moving and how physical they are and all that stuff. Sometimes they aren't seeing that, what you're showing them," Nurse explained.

"And then they get out there and feel it. I think we were behind on some stuff, we went under a bunch of stuff we didn't want to go under on. They play extremely fast and we got twisted up in some matchups. But then we just got it so much better in the second quarter."

The Sixers finished the second quarter on a 31-12 run, flipping the 14-point deficit into a five-point lead by halftime.

There were two adjustments visible from the press section.

First, Embiid changed his floor spots a bit, shifting away from the top of the key and wings and to the elbows and nail. Toronto, who was without big man Jakob Poeltl in this game, attacked Embiid by sending help when he turned his back to the weak side of the floor.

They picked on him a few times, causing turnovers that he couldn't see coming.

So the big guy disoriented the Raptors' defense by establishing himself in spots where Toronto couldn't see both their primary assignments and the basketball when it was in his hands. Embiid got rolling with a handful of physical scores in the paint in the second quarter, shouldering his share of the offense to fuel the run.

Nurse made a heady adjustment, too.

He did not go back to Adem Bona after the Sixers were outscored by 13 points in the six minutes he was on the floor in the first quarter.

He opted for Andre Drummond in a frontcourt pairing with Watford. As the Sixers' defense grew stronger, the size helped sure up the rebounding. It limited the number of bites Toronto had at the apple.

The holes that Paul George and Jared McCain will fill are clear. The shooting has not been a hole to this point, but it will be enhanced when they are playing consistently. With George joining McCain, Maxey and Edgecombe, it will take some of the ball-handling pressure off of those second units.

One way or another, George will put a Sixer who can credibly dribble and shoot in the non-Maxey lineups. McCain will take some of the ball-handling responsibility off Quentin Grimes, who has looked far better as an off-ball threat than as an on-ball creator. 

It's not difficult to see how those two figure into the equation.

But until George is cleared to play, the Sixers are happy to trust Watford with more on-ball reps.

His drives were forceful in this game. He finished through fouls on a handful of layups in this game, breaking the Raptors' backs with three-point play after three-point play.

12 of his 17 rebounds were on the defensive glass. No other Sixer had more than five in the game. He did not waste advantages off Toronto's misses. He pulled down the ball and immediately advanced it to a speedy guard or pushed the pace himself.

"He's 6-foot-10!" Maxey commented with a smile after the game.

"Yeah," Watford followed. 

"I've been rebounding a lot. I rebounded in high school, rebounded in college. But here, it's a little tougher to rebound. It's a little tougher when you're not athletic like some of these guys," Watford said.

"But I was just able to go grab them out of the air today. My legs felt good. Jo was clearing the paint out and making sure his man didn't get it, so I was just able to come in there and grab some. I got a few offensive ones that led to some big buckets for us. But sort of just feeling the game out and then going and getting it. A mindset type of thing."

The Sixers have been terrible in third quarters through the first nine games of this season. They lost the third by only one point on Saturday, and would've won it had they not made some sloppy mistakes late in the quarter.

Watford's physicality and playmaking at his size gave the offense a different punch than what it had in the first half.

He was made aware of his proximity to a triple-double near the end of the third quarter. He made an effort to get the ball to Maxey. Watford made sure to point out that his good friend had a would-be dunk blocked, delaying the inevitable achievement.

The best buds have remarkable chemistry on the court for a duo who has never played together before. They've long played against each other and admired each other's crafts from afar. Their chemistry off the court is even stronger.

It makes for an entertaining joint interview, especially when their spirits are high after a win in front of their home crowd.

But the themes of this new season cannot be ignored.

The Sixers continue to make plenty of mistakes on the margins. Those lapses kept Toronto in the game when it looked like the Sixers were preparing to put the finishing touches on a Saturday night show.

They committed silly fouls that didn't prevent baskets. Drummond interfered with a free throw, resulting in an offensive interference. Kelly Oubre Jr. was late on a low-man rotation late in the third quarter that gave Sandro Mamukelashvili a bucket and a free throw. Embiid rushed a three trying to play the 3-for-2 possession game in the final minute of the third.

It will always be a game of runs. Sure, we can chalk these things up as ebbs and flows of a basketball game. But the Sixers are a bad lineup experiment away from 7-2 and a botched crunch time away from 8-1.

They could also be on the other end of eight crunch times in their first nine games. 2-7 or 1-8 could've easily been where things stood nine games into the season.

They'll take 6-3. Anyone would've signed up for 6-3 with a ludicrous three sets of back-to-backs in their first nine contests.

But the mistakes on the margins add up. They can change your perspective on an entire season. The Sixers didn't win their sixth game last season until December 6. Philadelphia is nearly a month ahead of that pace.

But they're still searching for a full 48 minutes of basketball.