Instant observations: Paul George drops 39 points to lead Sixers past Wizards

Paul George is COOKING The Sixers’ road trip was always destined for a bit of a letdown game in Washington after two high-stakes battles against play-in teams. A date with the hapless Wizards before returning home for a back-to-back against the Wolves and Pistons? Certainly wasn’t going to be their best effort and performance of the season.

Even by those standards, the first half of this game was an absolute trainwreck. Their apathy jumped off the screen for 24 consecutive minutes to start the night, with the Wizards doing whatever they wanted on offense, even with most of their talent injured and unavailable. Washington created constant dribble penetration from every spot on the floor, with the Sixers not too interested in cutting drives off at the point of attack.

Communication breakdowns happened at a breakneck pace, with Sixers players calling for switches in situations that gave their teammates zero chance to make a play. Quentin Grimes had the nerve to ask for a switch in transition, which led to three different Sixers standing and doing nothing as the Wizards picked up a wide-open dunk during the breakdown. It was so bad that you almost had to ask if the team was responding (negatively!

) to Joel Embiid’s passive-aggressive battle with the franchise over Twitter, suggesting that he was held out of the game against his will after missing their morning shootaround. Even 20% effort on defense should be enough to stay connected and get consistent stops against this version of the Wiz. Mercifully, the Sixers absolutely carved up Washington on offense, holding a narrow lead at halftime mostly thanks to the efforts of Mr.