Beating a team that was 1-5 coming in and is now 1-6 doesn't prove much on its own. The Bulls have been bad all week, and a 19-point win over a bad team is supposed to happen. Records work that way.
The way Philadelphia won this one is worth taking seriously. LeBron James and Joel Embiid each finished with 15 points, neither cracked 20, and Embiid, who was questionable to even play, wasn't needed in the fourth quarter at all. The scoring load fell to Tyrese Maxey, Jaylen Brown and VJ Edgecombe, who all cleared 20, while the starting five combined for 33 assists against a bench that managed three. The ball found the open man regardless of who was wearing it.
That matters for the real question here: is this team actually good or just feasting on a bad opponent? Both things are true at once. Chicago is struggling, and Philadelphia has more two-way shot-creation on the floor at one time than almost anyone in the league. A team with Maxey, Brown, Edgecombe, James and Embiid all drawing attention doesn't need one guy to go off to win by 19. That margin comes from four or five guys who can all punish a defense that collapses on any one of them, and it'll show up again against teams that aren't tied for the league's worst record.
Rating
RatingThe 36 minutes for Maxey, in a game decided well before the fourth quarter, is where I get off the bandwagon. If this roster is as deep as the box score suggests, there's no reason your starting point guard needs 36 minutes against a team that's lost five straight. You run him that long either because the staff doesn't fully trust what's behind him, or because closing games with the bench still worries them enough that they won't risk it even up big. Either way, the depth that made this night look effortless hasn't translated into a rotation anyone trusts with the game already decided. A 19-point win should be the moment you find out what your ninth and tenth men can do. Philadelphia didn't use it that way. That's a decision on the coaching staff. The players sitting behind Maxey had nothing to do with it.
The defense is the other asterisk nobody in Philadelphia wants to talk about this morning. Chicago pulled Embiid away from the rim with stretch bigs and had him stuck between coverages for stretches, and the Sixers didn't handle ball screens well either. Against a roster that can shoot and attack a scrambling defense, those same openings turn into a dogfight instead of a blowout. That version of this team shows up in March, and it's the one that will tell you whether the record is earned or borrowed.
RTGThis win doesn't settle the argument, and nobody at 7-1 in November should be measuring banners yet. But a team that can roll five different scorers past 15 points and still have three assists left over for the bench has more going for it than matchups. It's also not yet a team that trusts itself enough to pull its starters once a game's decided, and until that changes, every blowout will come with the same asterisk attached.
