Yabu heroics, Oubre block, RC4 slam: 7 highlights from Sixers’ win over Wizards

It wasn’t very pretty, but the Philadelphia 76ers will take the victory over the lowly Wizards. Guerschon Yabusele, Kelly Oubre Jr., Ricky Council IV and Tyrese Maxey round out our highlights.

The Philadelphia 76ers defeated the Washington Wizards 109-103 on Wednesday night. It was absolutely ugly, but it was a win.

Both teams had laundry lists of injury reports for this one. The Sixers were without Joel Embiid, Paul George, Andre Drummond, Kyle Lowry, KJ Martin and Jared McCain. The Wizards were missing Marvin Bagley III, Saddiq Bey, Malcolm Brogdon, Johnny Davis, Jordan Poole and Alexandre Sarr.

It certainly wasn’t the prettiest or most high-quality basketball game you might watch all year, but the Sixers still managed to put together a few nice plays for us to look at here. If you’re looking for a full game recap, you can find that here. For the Bell Ringer, you can find that here. If you’re just looking for some highlights, you’re in the right place.

Let’s get to it.

1. A five-point play

This is a bit of a two-for-one highlight. In the first few seconds, Eric Gordon (who started on Wednesday) is aggressive early, getting right around his defender at the arc, driving into the paint to finish at the rim and drawing the foul. From there, Gordon misses the free throw, but is bailed out by Guerschon Yabusele fighting for and getting the offensive board. This is not the first time Yabusele has done this for a teammate’s free throw, and it paid off again Wednesday. Yabu kicks out to Tyrese Maxey on the perimeter and a missed free throw is turned into a triple.

2. Kelly Oubre Jr.’s monster block on Jonas Valanciunas

Kelly Oubre Jr. is listed as 6-foot-8, 203 pounds. Jonas Valanciunas is 6-foot-11, 265. Do I really need to say more? Well, I will.

Oubre has become extremely reliable not only for a burst of scoring but also a notable injection in energy, athleticism and enthusiasm for this Philadelphia team. This is a great example of not only that but of the massively improved defense Oubre has been putting up. You’ll struggle to find a Sixer being more disruptive to opposing offenses than Oubre right now. He has been extremely active down that end of the floor and has been racking up deflections, steals and blocks — not to mention the great defense that doesn’t show up on a stat sheet.

(Yes, I know Oubre spent a moment too long flexing after this block and the Wizards hit a three to end the possession. It’s still an impressive block and I still wanted to shout out Oubre’s recent defense overall.)

3. Oubre relocates for second chance at the bucket

Oubre misses the pull-up triple attempt to start this play, but instead of wallowing or giving up on the possession, he relocates as Yabusele fights for the rebound. Going right around Valanciunas, Oubre gives Yabusele a close option to pass the ball off before he’s completely trapped and helps turn a missed three into a slam dunk.

It’s little things like this quick-thinking relocation that make me think of and miss Jared McCain, honestly. The kid was doing great things with game awareness moments like this, even as a rookie. Nice to see someone else on the Sixers working those skills.

4. Ricky Council IV being Ricky Council IV

It’s a joy to watch Ricky Council IV, especially when he’s brought in to try to inject some life into a semi-comatose Sixers’ team. And that, he does.

Not too much to overanalyze here, just Council keeping his head up and being aware of everyone on the floor. In a moment after coming down with the defensive board, Council looks up and sees how spread the floor is. He turns on the jets and takes it the length of the court at full speed, straight down the middle of the floor for one of his patented, high-flying dunks.

5. Tyrese Maxey keeps it simple

Another one that doesn’t need a ton of analyzing but is simply a great decision at the hands of the player holding the ball. It was another inconsistent night of shooting for Tyrese Maxey, who absolutely struggled in the first half before turning things around quite a bit in the second. With the game tied and about six seconds separating the game and shot clocks, the Sixers’ could have taken things slow here and risked instead trying to get a late bucket to leave the Wizards with less time. Instead, Maxey moved quickly off the Wizards’ missed bucket down the other end, with half of the Washington team still behind him, and did what he does best: get into the paint and finish at the rim. Fortunately, he didn’t even need a circus-shot reverse finish or anything like that here — just got to the cup and laid it in.

This was the bucket the Sixers needed to steal back the lead, now they just needed the defensive stop…

6. Yabusele saves the day

The Dancing Bear, the Frenchman, Yaba-daba-doo, whatever you want to call him — you might need to add “hero” to the list, because he absolutely saved the Sixers on Wednesday — 21 points on 6-for-11 field goal shooting, five triples, eight rebounds, three assists, one steal and two blocks. All in a day’s work for Yabusele. This was one of those two blocks, and it doesn’t get much better than this.

Bilal Coulilbaly is bringing up the ball for the Wizards, down two points with just 20 seconds left to play. Yabusele engages with Coulibaly around the logo, staying right with him and tracking him as he charges into the paint. Yabusele leaps, timing both his jump and the swat of his arm perfectly to deny Coulilbaly at the rim without fouling and all but securing the victory for the Sixers.

7. Yabusele seals the win with style

Now he’s just showing off… Kidding.

No one better deserved to cap off this game with an emphatic dunk and get a roar from the Wells Fargo Center crowd than Yabusele.

What was your favorite Sixers’ play of this dumpster fire of a basketball game? Let us know in the comments!