Instant observations: Dominick Barlow dominates in Sixers win over Clippers

Dominick Barlow played the game of his life against the L.A. Clippers, scoring 26 points and pulling down 16 rebounds in a 128-113 Sixers win over L.A. Philadelphia dominated from start to finish, surging to an 18-3 lead and never trailing once in the first game of their road trip out west.

Here’s what I saw.

Take a bow, Dominick Barlow

The first quarter of Sixers-Clippers has a case for the best team ball Philadelphia has played all season. Up against a team down James Harden and tired on the second half of a back-to-back, the Sixers were the aggressor on both ends, testing the “want to” of their hosts in Los Angeles.

Credit to Nick Nurse for at least one major part of the game plan — the Sixers basically auto-doubled Kawhi Leonard every time he touched the ball, and the Clippers were completely unprepared to deal with it. Nurse has long preferred this strategy against his former star wing, and Leonard dealt with it even worse than the Sixers could have hoped for, throwing passes out of bounds and clanging shots off the iron. They were the tougher, more physical team to start this game, and since the Clippers had no offensive flow in the opening quarter, it allowed the Sixers to get out and run.

The face of Philadelphia’s “no mercy” approach was Dominick Barlow, whose role has been up and down after being demoted from the starting lineup recently. This was perhaps the best game of his young career and a perfect example of how far activity can take you. On the Sixers’ first 12 missed shots of the game, Barlow had four different offensive rebounds, including one on his own miss on a drive to the basket. The Clippers could not match his fight or his athleticism around the basket, with Barlow popping up in the right places over and over again.

Barlow did just as much work on the other end, mind you, often switching onto Kawhi Leonard and playing a big part in their coverage of the opponent’s No. 1 option. He is a really smart and instinctual player for a guy who was available on a two-way contract last summer, constantly popping up around the ball, but without being needlessly risky with his help. He picked up loose change around the top of the arc on one terrific first-half sequence, outrunning the Clippers for a transition dunk in the process.

Usually, this sort of start fades, and the role-playing forward goes back to making the occasional hustle play, otherwise hanging out in the background. But Barlow refused to go away, pummeling the Clippers on the offensive glass until the final whistle. He had a sequence in the third quarter where he tipped up not one, not two, but three different putback attempts, getting the final one to drop as he was fouled, earning himself the hoop plus the harm.

With Joel Embiid and VJ Edgecombe on the bench to open the fourth, Maxey badly needed some help scoring and creating to get through the opening five minutes. You guessed it, Barlow managed that too. He had a sick and-one finish in traffic to push himself to a new career high in scoring, right before hitting a corner three to trigger a Clippers timeout, essentially putting this game to rest.

Whether the Sixers make a consequential move at the deadline is up in the air, but their most important business may be getting this guy locked in on a standard deal. He fits exactly what they need at the position (minus the jumper), and he has the youth to grow into an even more important player down the road. But here’s the follow-up question: Is Barlow going to accept a minimum deal? You might argue he shouldn’t take one if he’s capable of games like this.

Oh yeah, the other guys

Powered by Barlow’s activity early, it would quickly become the Tyrese Maxey show, with Maxey burning the nets down from deep on a perfect 4/4 from downtown in the first quarter alone. Some of his pull-up jumpers were audacious, including a logo three in transition after tough on-ball defense forced a Clippers turnover. That combination of defensive might and downtown malice was a sight to behold under the Intuit Dome lights, drawing oohs and ahhs to open their trip to California.

There have been high assist games for Maxey where it felt like his passing impact was overstated, and I thought this game skewed the other way, with Maxey not rewarded in the box score for consistently good decisions as a playmaker. Save for a moment in the middle of the third when he pulled a transition three instead of giving VJ Edgecombe a sure dunk, he stretched the Clippers out by forcing them to chase the ball instead of him.

For about 2.5 quarters, it was a restrained scoring night for a guy who opened it absolutely on fire, but I was somewhat thrilled by that, with Maxey making smart basketball player after smart basketball play instead of trying to call his own number at the cost of better offense. But when it was time to put this game away, he was happy to play the shining star, hitting a transition three early in the third, a stepback two in the middle portion of the period, and the stepback three that put this game on ice, pushing the lead to 16 with about 4.5 minutes left.

Let’s not forget Kelly Oubre, either. He was often the first man on Kawhi while they waited for the second man to double, playing an important role to buy teammates time to flood the zone and force the ball where they wanted it to go.

Oubre added on to perhaps his best shooting season ever with a 3/6 night from deep in L.A., a hell of a way to open this road trip. As a standstill half-court shooter, Oubre is still up and down, but I have grown to trust him almost implicitly as a transition threat. When teammates hit him in the hands with the laces positioned just right and the defense scrambling, my confidence is high that Oubre will add three points to the board. And even when he doesn’t, Oubre is likely to go back down the other end and put in a shift.

Other notes

— Quentin Grimes, enjoy your moment, because this is one of the best poster finishes of the year:

This was a rock-solid game for Grimes off the bench on a night when Edgecombe was dreadful shooting the ball, with Grimes scoring an important pull-up three right before hitting a beautiful drive-and-dish to Jared McCain late in the third. He deserved his chance to play important crunch-time minutes, and hopefully, this is the start of a return to form after a fairly long slump.

— The only guy who didn’t start this game in rip-roaring form was Joel Embiid, which is a bit of a shock given his recent run of games. In fact, Dominick Barlow’s hot start came largely off of Embiid misses from either block, with the young power forward dominating the glass on a series of missed jumpers for Embiid.

He made his presence known as a scorer in the final two quarters, getting the midrange jumper going to coast his way to a 20+ point night once again. Frankly, in Philadelphia’s usual stinker quarter in the third, he was one of the only guys who had it going, and he was a safety valve in the fourth for a team running out of offensive answers, finding the sweet spot in the middle of the floor for some short middies.

Being able to bury Embiid down here is, in my mind, a great reflection of Monday night’s game. How often can Embiid have a pedestrian first half and middling overall game while the Sixers still waltz to victory? There haven’t been many of these in recent history.

— I continue to be wildly impressed with VJ Edgecombe as a playmaker, as he grows into the role of second-unit lead and a frequent point guard even with Maxey and Embiid on the floor. You are starting to see him really weaponize his athleticism to hit the paint, draw a second defender, and then fire passes in all directions, whether they are bounce passes to the dunker spot or corner skips that create open threes for the Sixers.

It would be preferred, of course, if he could also make shots. Edgecombe got a healthy dose of open threes against the Clippers and couldn’t find the range. We’ve been fortunate to avoid many games like this from the rookie, so the hope is he’ll shake this off and deliver a gem in Tuesday’s meeting with the Warriors.