Sixers lose game but win tank-off vs. Wizards

In a game neither team wanted to win, it was the Sixers who were able to improve their lottery odds Wednesday night.

Not exactly trying to win. Will Smith courtside. Is it just 2013 again?

The Sixers made it close, but completed their objective, losing to the Washington Wizards 119-114 Wednesday night.

Back in the lineup, Quentin Grimes led Philadelphia with 22 points on 6-of-16 shooting. Guerschon Yabusele had 21 points along with eight rebounds. Justin Edwards had 19 and 10 on 9-of-12 shooting.

Alex Sarr led all scorers with 24.

While Grimes returned to the lineup but Jalen Hood-Schifino was out with an illness. Alex Reese was inactive due to dwindling two-way days, giving the Sixers nine available players. Khris Middleton and Marcus Smart headlined several unavailable players for Washington.

Here are some grades from the Center.

Quentin Grimes

The start of his night was disrupted a bit as he landed on a fan’s foot knocking down his first three of the night. He favored it for a bit but did stay in the game. Even on a night where he wasn’t his most efficient, the offense couldn’t get anything going if it wasn’t Edwards or Yabu.

Grimes finished the first half with a flurry of jumpers to pull the Sixers back in the game and continued that into the second half. He did his best to rip off one more heater to pull off a big comeback in the fourth quarter, but was seemingly out of gas.

Notably, he and Edwards didn’t play a ton at the end of the game. Edwards relieved Grimes with two minutes left after a lengthy rest himself. Grimes technically came back in the game, but the game was effectively over. After Grimes left the game the Sixers hit a couple threes to give them a puncher’s chance at pulling it off, but Washington was able to hit enough shots and free throws to put it away.

Grade: B-

Justin Edwards

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, it continues to be impressive how good Edwards is at picking spots for a rookie. He only got up threes in the first before starting to attack as the game went on. Perhaps his most impressive bucket of the night was when he was stymied on a drive put didn’t panic, and just put up a hook shot over the defender.

Everyone who played on the perimeter deserves to get dinged for getting torched by this Wizards team. So it’s going here, even though Edwards was far from the main culprit.

Grade: A-

Guerschon Yabusele

While the Wizards opened the game running up and down the floor to get out to a huge lead, the Sixers’ game plan seemed to be let Yabu cook. He scored their first nine points of the game as he put up a strong first half. Continuing to move a lot better, he threw down couple big dunks in the half.

Especially against Washington’s starters, lineups with Yabusele at center struggled to get stops, but that isn’t really new, or that much of his fault.

Grade: B+

Adem Bona

He wasn’t able to help the initial Wizards’ barrage, but Bona’s presence did eventually help the first half from becoming lopsided. The stretch of the second quarter was their best and it was when he was anchoring a 2-3 zone.

As always, he was looking to dunk someone through the earth’s crust. He went for an ambitious poster on Sarr and didn’t get that one to go, but got another contested dunk over him a few minutes later.

Grade: C+

Phillip Wheeler

Playing in his first NBA game, Wheeler wasted no time to get himself on the board by driving right to the basket. He got one more of those, and nearly had a big windmill dunk but was too long. He hustled hard for rebounds, but didn’t really have much of an impact elsewhere. Unsurprisingly, Marcus Bagley got a little bit more run, though he wasn’t able to do much either.

Wheeler’s highlight of the night was throwing a lob to Ricky Council IV that appeared to come too late, but Council did an impressive job of hanging in there and finishing the oop.

Grade: Welcome to the league!

The Sixers have a few days off before embarking on another back-to-back. They’ll host the Miami Heat Saturday night at 7:30 p.m. ET.