Instant observations: Sixers win play-in slugfest vs. Magic to advance to playoffs

Here’s what I saw. Live by the iso, win by the iso (for now) — If you paid much attention to either of these teams all season, you knew this game was going to be a slog on offense. Orlando has been rough to watch there all season, and without Joel Embiid, the Sixers are a predictable group.

But I don’t think Philadelphia did themselves many favors with the strategic approach to this game, because there wasn’t much of one beyond matchup hunting. For much of the first half, the Sixers relied on their ability to win one-on-one matchups as the totality of their offense. It was particularly stark at the start of the second quarter, with Paul George isolating against Franz Wagner over and over again, and with reasonably strong results, knocking down a few picturesque jumpers to pad the lead.

The problem is that those possessions are inherently hard to live on, even for scorers with the size and touch of George. So it left the others out to dry, with VJ Edgecombe struggling early and Tyrese Maxey needing some pull-up magic to sustain his own offense. The stakes were clear — George and Maxey were going to need to summon some special possessions in isolation.

The Magic have turned to Jamal Cain to get some bench shooting in the rotation over the second half of this season, but he was drawing dead trying to keep up with George, not long enough to contest him from the midrange and not quite strong enough to wall him off from the rim. George turned around a game that started poorly within that “Cook his ass, Paul! ” scheme, hitting a particularly nasty three over both Wagner and Goga Bitadze on the right wing.