PHILADELPHIA \u2014 Count up the chess pieces in Wednesday\u2019s NBA Play-In Tournament game between the 76ers and the Orlando Magic, and eventually you were going to land on Kelly Oubre as a decider.<\/p>\n
Tyrese Maxey would battle Paolo Banchero in the matchup of star scorers, if not directly. The combination of the Magic\u2019s two bigs and the 76ers\u2019 pair would try to cancel. Paul George would try to get the better of Franz Wagner, and VJ Edgecombe and Desmond Bane would battle each other.<\/p>\n
Amid that tangle was Oubre. He would have a role in the defensive battle against Wagner and Banchero, and he\u2019d chip into the rebounding tussle. But if Oubre got the ball in his hands on the offensive side, he could tip the scales.<\/p>\n
Oubre ended up as the X factor in a 109-97 win for the 76ers to clinch the seventh seed in the NBA playoffs and a date with second-seeded Boston. Oubre hit five 3-pointers on a night where the Magic hit seven, and the rest of the 76ers connected on seven. Three came in the first quarter, leading to a four-point lead that held most of the way. He added a pair of big buckets in the fourth quarter on the way to 19 points, all of them vital to the Sixers\u2019 cause.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe did some things at shootaround and walkthrough, then just were preparing for other guys to be open,\u201d Oubre said. \u201cObviously, Tyrese demands a lot of attention. Paul demands a lot of attention. So you\u2019ve just got to be locked and loaded and ready to go.\u201d<\/p>\n
Oubre was that early. He hit two of his first three looks, then canned one late in the frame to put the 76ers up 28-24 after one.<\/p>\n
The hosts would trail the eighth-seeded Magic just twice the rest of the way, never by more than three points.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that\u2019s always really important for him,\u201d Nick Nurse said of Oubre\u2019s early offense. \u201cI\u2019m glad that we made the right reads there. We thought that was something we could go to, and I\u2019m glad that we found it, went to it and it worked.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI definitely think it settles him in for sure,\u201d Maxey said. \u201cTrying to get him going early, making shots, because he\u2019s going to be a big key for us. He does a good job defensively. He guards a lot of different people, rebounds, he does all those things, and he keeps our intensity high, and we appreciate him for that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Oubre\u2019s defensive contributions means he\u2019s likely to contribute positively even when not scoring. When he gets shots to fall, the 76ers can unlock another level, even without Joel Embiid.<\/p>\n
Oubre and George were the primary reasons that Orlando\u2019s top two scorers, Wagner and Banchero, were stymied. Banchero shot just 7-for-22 from the field, with nearly as many turnovers (six) as made baskets. He was a game-worst minus-17.<\/p>\n
Wagner remains on a minutes restriction as he returns from an ankle injury that cost him six weeks. The 29:17 he played was the most since returning April 1, getting into six of the team\u2019s final seven regular-season games. But his explosiveness remains missing, and 5-for-12 for 12 points and three assists was fine by the 76ers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re big,\u201d George said of the 6-10 but mobile Wagner and Banchero. \u201cI thought Kelly and I, we had to make it tough. We had to challenge them. We had to play physical with them. We had to get into their dribble. We had to crowd them. I thought it was just a no- back-down mentality.\u201d<\/p>\n
Oubre did the not backing down part. This game got chippy early, with five technicals. The first set came when Banchero and Oubre went nose to nose 3:30 into the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe never back down,\u201d Oubre said. \u201cWe\u2019re always going to ride for our brothers and be right behind each other whenever anything like that goes down. But they know I\u2019m front line. I\u2019m going to smile, I\u2019m going to laugh in your face, because I do have a black belt. So hopefully it doesn\u2019t get to that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Oubre, as he\u2019s done many times, had a knack for the clutch. The Magic got within one at 87-86 with 7:56 left before Maxey orchestrated a personal 7-0 to reinflate the lead. Bane, who led Orlando with 34 points, answered out of a timeout with a 3-pointer to make it 94-89, but Oubre came right back by stepping into a 28-footer to restore an 8-point edge.<\/p>\n
He added a pair of free throws with a drive to the basket up seven with 66 seconds left, then fed Andre Drummond\u2019s dagger 3-pointer to clinch it.<\/p>\n
It was all built on the platform of Oubre\u2019s early shooting.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I was going to be that open, then I\u2019m shooting with confidence, and once I see one go in, I\u2019m able to just string together a good little run of 3s,\u201d he said. \u201cSo tonight was a great game, but on to the next.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA \u2014 Count up the chess pieces in Wednesday\u2019s NBA Play-In Tournament game between the 76ers and the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":711746,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3779],"tags":[7,48,6,47,76,3883,66,88703],"class_list":{"0":"post-711745","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-orlando-magic","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-magic","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-orlando","12":"tag-orlando-magic","13":"tag-orlandomagic","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-top-stories-cvc"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116414443957185874","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=711745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/711746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=711745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=711745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=711745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}