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Technology

Why did the flywheel hybrid system never catch on for road cars?

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Enlarge / Why did the flywheel hybrid never catch on for road cars?

When a Speed network television crew interviewed Margo T. Oge, then-director of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Transportation and Air Quality, during the 10-hour long 2010 Petit Le Mans Series race at Road Atlanta, Porsche’s experimental 911 GT3 R Hybrid race car held down a top-20 position in the 45-car field.

The broadcast crew took every opportunity to call attention to the presence of the new Porsche. Hybrid street cars were becoming mainstream, and “road relevance” was repeatedly cited by Oge along with energy independence and low carbon emissions as EPA imperatives.

But, like its similarly new Formula One hybrid race car cousins, this special 911 GT3 R was not a street-going hybrid. This was a “flywheel hybrid.” Instead of parallel gasoline engine/electric motor drive systems combined with a battery, the 911 racer paired an internal combustion flat-six cylinder with an electro-mechanical flywheel energy storage system.

Porsche motorsports engineers began researching hybrid systems for racing in 2007. Around the same time, F1 decided to integrate hybrid tech. Starting with the 2009 season, F1 allowed its teams to use mild hybrid systems called kinetic energy recovery systems (KERS).

Most F1 teams developed KERS that used batteries, but the Williams F1 team created an electromechanical flywheel system. Williams ultimately did not race that system owing to Formula One technical regulations. (Interestingly, Chrysler attempted to build a natural gas/flywheel hybrid race car for Le Mans 15 years earlier, but that program never made it to a race either.)

  • In 2009, F1 teams were allowed to use hybrid systems for the first time. The Williams F1 team chose to develop one that used a flywheel instead of a chemical battery or capacitor as its energy store. However, the system never raced in F1.

  • This is what the Williams Hybrid Power flywheel looked like.

  • Williams set up a spin-off company, Williams Hybrid Power, to develop and refine the flywheel hybrid. In 2010, it partnered with Porsche Motorsport to build the 911 GT3 R Hybrid.

  • Audi then used the flywheel hybrid system to good effect in its R18 e-tron Quattro. This car would win Le Mans three times in a row.

  • An illustration of the Audi R18 e-tron Quattro hybrid system.

However, Porsche eventually licensed the concept from Williams Hybrid Power and set about adapting it to endurance racing in the 911 GT3 R Hybrid. Audi, too, had a go with a flywheel in its all-conquering R18 e-tron Quattro diesel-electric prototype. The Audi prototype used a system further developed by UK automotive/aerospace supplier, GKN, which acquired Williams Hybrid Power in 2014. This flywheel hybrid racer won dozens of races, including the 24 Hours of Le Mans, outright, in 2012, 2013, and 2014.

Given these high-profile racing factory programs nestled in F1 and sports car racing, many if not most casual observers expected flywheel hybrid technology to migrate to production vehicles within a few years.

That never happened. How come?

A high-RPM booster

In simple terms, an automotive flywheel hybrid system leverages power from a mechanical flywheel motor to augment power from an internal combustion engine for short periods. Electric motor/generators located at a vehicle’s wheels or axles produce electricity harvested from the kinetic energy which is otherwise wasted as heat when friction brakes decelerate the vehicle.

But instead of sending the energy to a chemical battery for storage and redeployment, the electricity is used to drive a flywheel motor. Electrical energy is transferred to rotating kinetic energy by a novel magnetic material (sometimes a magnetic powder) embedded within the flywheel. The more energy applied, the faster it spins. (NB: this is different to the mechanical flywheel hybrid system that Nissan attempted unsuccessfully to develop for its 2015 Le Mans racer.)

The mass of the flywheel and the velocity at which it spins—typically from 25,000rpm up to 55,000rpm or more—determine the availability of energy it can release. To transfer the kinetic energy stored in the flywheel back into electrical energy, the rotating magnetic field generates a current in the reverse direction (by inverting the polarity of the applied voltage) and power is delivered to the same motor/generators that harvested energy during the original braking event.

As noted, the motor generators may be located at the wheels. Alternately, a flywheel motor may be connected to the engine driveshaft via a continuously variable transmission (CVT) or other coupler. When called for, it couples with the driveshaft, taking the potential energy from the flywheel and translating it to kinetic energy propelling the driveshaft and drive wheels.

Flywheel motors have often been compared to capacitors, capable of quickly storing and releasing energy. Proponents cite weight, cost, and environmental advantages over traditional chemical-battery hybrids.

  • The GT3 R Hybrid was built to compete in 2010’s running of the Nurburgring 24, a round-the-clock endurance race held at the famous track.

  • A top-down illustration of the GT3 R Hybrid’s powertrain. The components in red are the flywheel hybrid system, power electronics, and the two electric motor/generator units.

  • Another look at the GT3 R Hybrid’s powertrain.

  • In a road car, this would be the front passenger seat. In the GT3 R Hybrid, it was reserved for the flywheel.

In the 911 GT3 R, the flywheel motor used a carbon fiber-composite flywheel with a 16-inch (406mm) diameter. Mounted in a carbon fiber box where the passenger seat would be in a road-going 911, the flywheel motor received power from, and sent power to, an 80hp (60kW) electric motor/generator at each front wheel. The configuration allowed Porsche to incorporate torque vectoring to improve handling/traction when accelerating from corner apex out.

The flywheel motor in Porsche’s racer had a capacity of 0.2kWh. It could deliver 163hp (122kW) for up to six seconds, offering boost for acceleration—out of corners or for passing depending on how/when the driver decided to apply the extra power via a steering wheel-mounted button.

The car had a total system output of about 670hp (500kW) and weighed approximately 2,866lbs (1,300kg). The flywheel and support structure reportedly weighed around 103lbs (47kg), considerably lighter than a battery-electric hybrid setup. In all, the car weighed 230lbs (104kg) more than the conventional Porsche GT3 cars it shared the track with.

Porsche viewed flywheel storage as more durable than lithium-ion batteries in the extreme power charge/discharge cycles of racing. Unlike a battery, the flywheel motor was capable of being fully charged (accelerated to its maximum speed) and discharged (decelerated to a near stop) multiple times a minute without adverse affects.

Thanks to its relative fuel efficiency—if not outright speed—the 911 GT3 R Hybrid actually led the 2010 Nurburgring 24 Hour race for eight hours before dropping out. At the 2010 Petit Le Mans, the car ultimately finished 18th, though attrition helped.

It raced again in 2011 but was put aside thereafter as Porsche concentrated on its 919 Hybrid World Endurance Championship prototype racer.

Slow, not fast, energy recovery & storage

The shift in Porsche’s racing commitment to the Le Mans-bound 919 Hybrid was partly connected to its contemporary road-going supercar project, according to Daniel Armbruster, president and CEO of Porsche Motorsport North America.

“It was around that time that work was also already underway on the 918 Spyder plug-in hybrid super sports car,” he remembers. “In both instances [919/918], it was found that lithium-ion batteries offered the best balance of energy retention and power delivery for their respective purposes.”

Despite its routine stop-start nature—and thus opportunities to harvest regenerative braking energy—street driving is not characterized by the need to sprint from corner apex to corner apex, braking and accelerating at maximum possible rates as in racing. The demand for quick, intensive energy recovery and subsequent deployment is replaced by a mandate for slower-paced electrical energy generation and deployment, shifting the emphasis to energy storage.

“The flywheel hybrid technology in the 911 GT3 R Hybrid offered fuel savings and therefore a reduced need for pit time versus the cars it competed against,” Armbruster explains. “In racing applications, it’s possible to make more effective use of a flywheel because of the frequent hard braking and acceleration that are both good matches for the short-term energy storage ability and high output capacity of that technology.”

“But the technology wasn’t without challenges. In general, the flywheel does not store much energy, just the braking energy,” he says. “A battery is able to achieve highly stable, long-term energy storage in a way that a flywheel simply cannot match. For road uses where the ability to drive on demand without local emissions is important, as is becoming increasingly the case in parts of Europe, a battery-based solution is the best hybrid powertrain option.”

While the limited storage capacity of the flywheel hybrid sidelined the technology for Porsche, Armbruster adds that, “There is no denying that the 911 GT3 R Hybrid played a pivotal role in proving that hybrid technology had a home in high-performance sports car applications.”

Looking back to that time from the present day, Glen Pascoe, principal design engineer with Williams Advanced Engineering (WAE), says that the quick capture and release of energy by flywheel motor systems is better suited to peak cycle applications.

“Besides city-center use, the duty cycle for a typical passenger car does not suit the repeated ‘start-stop’ nature that best suits flywheel technology,” says Pascoe. “The stored energy in a flywheel is always depleting, unlike a chemical battery, which can hold its state of charge over a very long period of time.”

On the buses

Williams’ basic flywheel hybrid concept did reach city centers in 2015 when GKN modified the system for London buses. GKN’s Gyrodrive flywheel hybrid system included a traction motor driven from the vehicle’s drive axle, an electric flywheel, an inverter for the motor/flywheel unit, and an electronic control system.

The system, and subsequent variations, have seen use in buses from UK manufacturer Alexander Dennis in both single and double-decker bus models. However, the Gyrodrive flywheel system was considered too large and expensive for urban-use cars (taxis), which adopted various battery strategies.

Glen Pascoe says WAE is not specifically refining any flywheel systems at the present but adds that “as we work across a wide range of industries and examine the requirements of our clients in detail, this technology may be appropriate for certain applications in the future.”

That could include racing if racing series/sanctioning bodies allowed such devices though current interest appears to lie more in hybrid battery and fast-charging development. WAE is currently engaged in hydrogen fuel cell development for large mining trucks using regenerative braking in much the same way as with flywheel systems.

Porsche Motorsport North America’s president says the company “is always evaluating which technologies offer the best solution for the current situation,” not ruling out any single approach.

Armbruster explains that Porsche’s strategy “includes internal combustion powertrains, sporty plug-in hybrids and fully electric vehicles… We are also investigating the development of synthetic fuels that offer an environmentally sound approach to internal combustion vehicles that are already on the road.”

Ironically, the flywheel hybrids that most of us now encounter lie in vehicles we ride in (buses, trains, ships) rather than drive. And static flywheel systems are also under development; in Germany, a company called Chakratec has just installed a flywheel storage system at a Premier Inn in Leipzig, designed to manage peak loads for EV chargers.

But about a decade ago flywheel-motor-augmented race cars led the Nurburgring 24 and competed credibly against lighter GT3 cars. Further investment could both lighten and potentially improve the energy storage capacity of such systems, again pairing drivers and flywheels in a sport that rarely throws everything away.

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Technology

The Road to 1K: Cyber Shadow (0-691G)

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One of the downsides of working in games media is that it’s hard to be too precious about things like completions. The nature of the job means that I’ve ended up with my account showing hundreds of games with difficult (if not now-impossible) 1Ks, games I have no interest in returning to, and games I never would have played in the first place had some kindly soul not paid me to do so. Sure, I could have set up a second account for stuff I didn’t want on my main tag, but that would have meant a second Live sub, plus that ship sailed for me years ago and I’ve pretty much made my peace with it. My completion percentage may forever be in the gutter, then, but that doesn’t mean I’m not keen to give it a bit of a boost when the right game comes along. I initially started up Cyber Shadow with the intention of putting together a quick Game Pass First Impressions piece last week before other stuff got in the way, and I didn’t take a look at the list before I fired it up. I definitely should have done. I am an idiot.

Wearing its 8-bit inspiration on its sleeve as it does, Cyber Shadow was never going to be an easy game to get through even casually. But after the first achievement popped at the end of Chapter 1 and I audibly muttered ‘oh no’ to myself at the 16G reward, I figured it was time to finally check out the list. Oh no indeed. Not only does the entire list consist of 16G, 31G, and 91G achievements, but it’s also only, like, an unobtainable and a grind achievement away from filling out an entire ‘evil achievement’ bingo sheet. Speedrun achievement? Check. 100% achievement? Of course, and one for 0%, too. Collectables? By the dozen. Missables? You know it, and plenty of ’em. Deathless achievement? Obviously. It’s one mean list, and I initially had no interest in going for the completion. But as the game opened up and its wonderful retro aesthetic, tight gameplay, and killer soundtrack drew me in, I slowly came around to the idea. Not only that, but I still wanted to give it some love on the site, although having missed the boat on both a first impressions piece and a review by that point, we’d have to get a little creative to do so. Thus, The Road to 1K was born — part review, part guide, part diary, and all in all, just a (hopefully) fun new way to shine a light on games we on staff are loving and trying to complete, but which we might not otherwise be able to cover. There may be a few ‘spoilers’ in terms of game content, in case you’re bothered by that kind of thing. Well, with the explanation bit out of the way, let’s get into it…

Session one: 0-363G

I was actually tempted to call it a day when that first 16G achievement popped, since it rounded out my score for the first time in ages. Still, a combination of wanting to cover the game in some way and curiosity to see more drove me onwards in spite of all the awkward numbers that were bound to follow. Looking at the stats on-site, I certainly wouldn’t have been the first to tap out there — Saving the clan, that first achievement I unlocked, has been earned by 97% of TA players, while the achievement for completing Chapter 2, Rise to the challenge, drops way down to just 47%. Turns out there were several more I could have unlocked before my first, too, as every boss has its own achievement for defeating it under certain conditions. Even after checking the list, this still managed to throw me off, as they’re not listed in the order they appear in the game. Also, I wasn’t going to go out of my way to try and get these during my ‘casual’ first run, since it was clear from the list that it was realistically going to take at least three full runs (100%, 0%, speedrun) to grab the lot, so there’d be plenty of chances to mop up later.

Looking at timestamps, it took me about 45 minutes to get through the second level (kinda embarrassing considering I can now do it in about ten), mostly due to the fact that instant death is only ever one wrong input away there. With limited recovery options early on, one tap from an enemy can send you tumbling into pits, spikes, or acid, and sent unceremoniously back to the last checkpoint. Each of these can be powered up with the currency you find to offer better recovery and even free items, though you need to be careful with the latter as buying the items can sometimes make the boss-specific achievements (notably Focused effort for beating the Chapter 3 mid-boss without destroying its turrets) much harder. Difficulty in general ramps up pretty quickly — damage is high, instant death hazards prevalent, and the learning curve steep. But from the end of Chapter 3 onwards, Cyber Shadow starts throwing amazing tools your way. Airstrike might seem like a simple downwards attack but it’s actually an extremely useful movement tool for adding height and distance to jumps, or recovering from hits. And as a huge Street Fighter III: Third Strike fan, I was delighted to unlock the parry, replete with the exact same input of tapping forward to deflect incoming blows (if only projectiles here). An oh, how I parried. I unlocked the No you achievement for parrying 50 times less than ten minutes after unlocking the ability, but what can I say? I just bloody love parrying.

As the difficulty continued to snowball, I pressed on. A few parts had me wanting to hurl my controller into the sea (the bike section towards the end is rough until you know the enemy and hazard patterns, and a couple of the later bosses worked me over pretty hard), but generally speaking, the satisfaction of eventually overcoming these obstacles made all that hardship worthwhile. As soon as you unlock Charge and pop Overpowered, Cyber Shadow turns into a completely different game. You don’t just run and jump any more — you soar. It’s a little overwhelming to have all of your abilities boosted at once, but once you learn how to chain it all together, it’s stupidly rewarding to just string dash slashes together, ground underfoot or no, and blitz entire sections in seconds. If you thought the game had some cool risk/reward stuff going on when it gave you a parry, just you wait until it breaks out the good stuff later on. One mistake can ruin everything so the stakes are high if you want to go fast, and you will. It’s just that much fun.

Before too long, I found myself at the last boss (read: three bosses, back-to-back). The first is pretty much free as it’s a rematch with a familiar face, but the second and third have some pretty novel mechanics which take a bit of working out. I took a bunch of intentional deaths here to start over when things went south early, but got there in the end. Ten hours and 550 deaths (at least 50 of which were intentional wipes on that last boss rush) after starting the game, I had reached the credits, and stayed up way too long doing so. Before bed, I decided to dive back in on a new file while I was still in the zone, to see how the two achievements related to the first mini-boss — Pacifist, for reaching Smasher without killing anything, and Smashing for beating it without destroying the turrets in the area — were. The answer was ‘absolutely fine,’ as it turns out, and I had both done within 15 minutes. With my first clear done and over a third of the Gamerscore earned in one sitting, it was time to finally hit the sack, dozing off with that banging soundtrack still echoing around in my head. But it was only just beginning. The real Cyber Shadow starts here…

Session two: 363-532G

Sitting down for my second session, my main objective was to round up the collectables I missed first time. I went out of my way during my initial run to jump between checkpoints and grab the few I knew were there once I had the relevant abilities, so that didn’t leave too many. One in particular cost me a lot of time and deaths — the very one guarded by the rude mini-boss in the image above, actually. You’ve likely faced this thing a few times by the time you reach this one, and while the fight itself is basically the same, the arena here means you need to approach it in a much cleaner and safer way unless you enjoy falling to your death. I do not. I really do not. The enemies on the platforms can be removed with dash slashes or charged shots from the checkpoint power-up, but the balls that orbit the boss can be a little erratic and while parrying and reflecting its projectiles is extremely effective, it’s also likely to lead to a death if you fluff the input or get crossed up and end up pressing the wrong direction. Again, got there in the end, leaving just one of each upgrade to find and with both in Chapter 6. These took a while to find, but I did find a bunch of really cool secret areas in the process, one full of chatty robot friends, and another a clear reference to Super Mario Bros.’ warp areas and even discovered in the same way — by running over the top of a section of the visible level — which offered a selection of power-ups for reaching it. I grabbed the Swag Blade (which very much lives up to its name, by the way) and continued my search, eventually managing to find and collect the last two things I was missing within five minutes of one another.

Just getting 100% collection rate isn’t enough, though. The game specifically demands a 100% completion for the 100% achievement, so I’d need to go and say hello to that trio of bosses one more time. Okay, a few more times. Things can go wrong very easily in the second and third phases. On my way back, I noticed something interesting to return to once the bosses had been dealt with, so a few runs later when I was 91G better off from my 100% clear, I did just that. There’s a room just before the final fight where a couple of respawning enemies appear with staggered timing, perfect for preventing their tracking projectiles and bouncing between them to earn the Airtime achievement for staying off the ground for 30 seconds. I messed around with this for a bit and eventually got it down to a science (I can defy gravity there endlessly now, should the need ever arise), and after getting the achievement, I noticed this one didn’t have a guide on TA yet so I decided to call it a day there, take a few pics, and throw together a quick guide to inform others of this fantastic risk-free spot. Only four achievements down, but I came away with a much better feel for game mechanics, and with one of the big ones ticked off, so I’ll take it.

Session three: 532-691G

I am no master strategist, and my third time loading into the game ended up being split across my original save and three new files: a new ‘normal’ run to get the boss achievements while learning the game some more, a 0% file in which I wouldn’t be able to fall back on health and SP boosts, and a burner file for attempting the deathless run. After grabbing two relatively easy achievements I’d missed on my main save, the boss run took priority, as learning the early game would be essential for the other two runs. One by one, I beat those bosses again while meeting the achievement conditions, and I was able to make it as far as Chapter 4 mid-boss Mekadragon pretty easily. Dry socks, unlocked by beating this boss without ever touching the water, tripped me up hard (I struggled with this guy’s unpredictability even casually), so I took this as my cue to start up my 0% run. Which, actually, went a lot smoother than I expected. Experience in the early game really paid off, and I managed to make it to the end of Chapter 3 with only two deaths, both to the tank mini-boss. Inspired by this, I tapped out when I reached Mekadragon (seriously, screw that jerk) and decided to go for the deathless run.

This doesn’t need to be a full completion, rather you just have to reach the dojo shortly after the end of Chapter 3 without taking a death to unlock it. Based on my 0% run, that seemed perfectly doable, so I went for it. Within a few attempts, I was consistently getting deep into Chapter 2 or even 3 before biting the dust and starting over… both stages punish mistakes hard and are rough to go back to when you’re used to having the recovery options of endgame at your disposal. I’m told you can quickly quit out and reload if you see a death coming early enough, but I’m not doing that. I want to earn this legitimately, and I know I can do it. Back-to-back ‘almost’ runs (both of which were entirely on me, like most deaths are in Cyber Shadow) led me to take a quick break and go back to my original save to pick up two of the three remaining achievements there — Don’t touch the paint, for beating that horrible bike section without taking damage, can wait until another run, as getting back to the trigger point is a pain. With those out of the way, I went back to trying Live forever, but with tiredness setting in and leading to sloppy play, it seemed like this should be saved for another time as well. I’ve been so close I could taste it on several occasions now and can beat all six bosses flawlessly, so I just need to hold together a decent run (read: not fall in holes like a chump) and I’ll have this done easily. Next time! Still, nine new achievements was solid progress, so I’m not gonna complain.

Well, that pretty much brings us up to date with my progress with the Cyber Shadow completion so far… 31/40 achievements done, 691/1,000G earned, and a couple more achievements already within spitting distance. The boss run will be a cakewalk as soon as I get Mekadragon down, and that’s five of those checked off right away — six if I can muster the patience to do the bike section one on this run as well, which I probably should. All that will leave is 0%, speedrun, and deathless. Deathless I have on lock, and that’ll come soon, plus that save file will be a great jumping-off point for the speedrun achievement, since I’m consistently getting almost a third of the way through the game in half an hour on my deathless attempts. 0% is the only one that scares me, but checkpoints are generous enough that by the time I hit that one up last, I should be in a good place to give it a proper go. Once I’m closer to my goal and can see myself joining those 13 elite ninjas on TA in earning my Cyber Shadow completion, I’ll be back to tell you more about my failures.

Or maybe not, if you all hate this. It’s something new, so we never know. Let us know in the comments if this was in any way entertaining/helpful/interesting/distracting from the fact that the world is on fire. We like to try out new things but it’s difficult to know how they will land, so your feedback is invaluable. In the meantime, check out Cyber Shadow if you like great games with evil achievement lists. It’s a proper challenge, and I’m loving it…

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US

Big Sur road collapse: A huge piece of California’s Highway 1 was washed out

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California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) officials said in a statement Friday a debris flow from the hillside above the roadway “overwhelmed drainage infrastructure, flowed across the highway, and eroded the road resulting in the complete loss of a segment of Highway 1” at Rat Creek, about 15 miles south of Big Sur, a mountainous stretch of the state’s central coast.

California Highway Patrol Officer John Yerace said he was in the area on Thursday around 4 p.m. when he noticed “this section of roadway, specifically the southbound lane, had fallen off into the ocean.”

Images and drone footage from the scene show a huge gap in the scenic highway, which runs along much of the California coast.

Caltrans crews discovered the debris flow on Thursday, and issued an emergency contract to Papich Construction in San Luis Obispo County to assist with the repair. At daybreak Friday, Caltrans crews and emergency contractors arrived at the scene and found “both lanes of the highway had washed out.”

The damage assessment team will continue to work through the weekend, Caltrans’ statement said. It’s unclear how long the repair could take and the road will remain closed in the meantime.

Officer Yerace said upon discovery of the washed out road he stayed at the scene to keep motorists safe until he was relieved. He later returned.

“Some time overnight, prior to 6:30 this morning, we responded back to the scene with the assistance of Caltrans access and realized that the roadway is now gone,” he said.

The area where the road collapsed is about a mile south of the burn scar left behind by the Dolan Fire, one of the wildfires that ravaged the state last summer, Caltrans said.
Another stretch of Highway 1 reopened in July 2018, after a massive mudslide in May 2017 heaped tons of rocks on a quarter mile section of the highway, making it impassable and adding 13 acres to the coastline.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has declared a state of emergency for Monterey and San Luis Obispo counties in response to winter storms that “threatened to cause mud and debris flows,” forcing the evacuation of thousands of residents, according to the declaration.

At least 25 structures in Northern California have been damaged as a result of mudslides and debris flow caused by a powerful atmospheric river-fueled storm. Most of the impacted areas are where burn scars exist from earlier wildfires.

CNN’s Alexandra Meeks and Sarah Moon contributed to this report.



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Sports

3 observations after Sixers grind out road win over Pistons behind Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid

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Last season, an away game against a less talented opponent following two encouraging wins over an Eastern Conference foe would likely have been a problem for the Sixers. They lost several frustrating games that fit that description or were very close to it. 

While it wasn’t easy, the team didn’t replicate that trend and took care of business Saturday night in Detroit, beating the Pistons by a 114-110 score and moving to 12-5. 

Detroit was without No. 7 overall pick Killian Hayes (right hip strain) Blake Griffin (left knee injury management) and Derrick Rose (left knee soreness). Vincent Poirier and Mike Scott remained out for the Sixers because of the NBA’s health and safety protocols and right knee swelling, respectively. 

The Sixers will stay in Detroit to play the Pistons again Monday night. Here are observations on their win to open the mini-series: 

Simmons thrives, makes up for bench’s off night 

Like Joel Embiid on Friday night, Ben Simmons had a strong start interrupted by foul trouble. Before being called for his second foul with 4:56 left in the first period, he posted eight points, three rebounds and two assists, driving downhill effectively. 

For a second consecutive game, the Sixers’ bench players didn’t fare well during their time on the floor late in the first and early in the second period, making sloppy mistakes that helped the Pistons prosper in transition. Though the Sixers have gotten valuable performances from their bench early in the season, the team’s all-second unit lineups have sometimes looked shaky.

 

All told, the Sixers’ bench was outscored 55-23 by Detroit’s second unit. 

Dwight Howard did his best to provide physicality and energy but was called for an offensive foul when he fought for an offensive rebound and Pistons rookie Isaiah Stewart ripped off a portion of his shorts. The veteran big man picked up a technical foul for arguing the perplexing call, as you can see in the video above. 

As for Simmons, he resumed his aggressive offensive mindset after that foul trouble-induced stint on the bench. He scored 16 of his 20 points in the first half, adding nine rebounds, seven assists and three steals in a characteristically diverse performance. 

With a 10-for-12 performance at the foul line, Simmons has now made 65.9 percent of his free throws this season. 

Simmons’ primary defensive assignment was Jerami Grant. While the Process Era Sixer has been having by far his most productive NBA season, he had a poor night against Simmons and the Sixers, scoring 11 points on 3-for-19 shooting. It’s certainly not the first time one of Simmons’ matchups has had a subpar game.

Even if missed open shots are part of what went wrong for Grant, it’s no coincidence that Simmons often makes the opposition’s top offensive threat look much less potent than he typically does. Simmons swallowed Grant up on one especially impressive third-quarter possession, mirroring his moves on the baseline, knocking the ball loose and forcing a jump ball. If he stays healthy, Simmons seemingly has the talent to rack up All-Defensive First Team honors year after year. 

Overmatched against Embiid, again 

Almost every time Embiid plays, it seems obligatory to note that he has an advantageous matchup, as if to indicate that his prodigious output comes with a significant caveat. When that’s the case so often, though, it says something about how difficult Embiid is to defend. The apparent formula for slowing him down is double teaming at the right times, making him take contested mid-range shots and avoiding fouls. It’s all much easier said than done.

Miles Plumlee, Stewart and former teammate Jahlil Okafor were the players tasked with guarding Embiid, who was listed as questionable leading into the game because of back tightness. None had any convincing answers against the three-time All-Star, though Embiid wasn’t quite as sharp or efficient as during the Sixers’ mini-series sweep over the Celtics. He scored 80 points on 34 field-goal attempts against Boston.

Embiid still recorded 33 points Saturday on 10-for-20 shooting and 14 rebounds, however, and nothing about his play was startlingly brilliant or exceptional by the very high standards he’s set. These sorts of performances look regularly within reach.

Grinding one out

Detroit held a sizable advantage over the Sixers in three-point shooting during the first half, hitting 9 of 15 long-range attempts compared to the Sixers’ 2-for-8 mark. The Pistons had a lot of success running Wayne Ellington (17 points) around screens, and the Sixers were occasionally lax in either not tracking shooters well or flying past them. 

 

The team’s defense also wasn’t flawless after halftime. However, the facts are that the Sixers overcame an 11-point first-half deficit to win on the road in the second half of a back-to-back. The Sixers did well to plow through those suboptimal circumstances.

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