Four Thoughts About The Sixers Through Three Games
So… what’s actually different?
Mike O’Connor is the best O’Connor in basketball writing. Previously of The Athletic, you can find Mike on Twitter @MOConnor_NBA.
The season is young, but after three games, we can at least attempt to make some observations on how the Sixers look after their offseason makeover. Here are a few trends that I’ve noticed from the early goings.
Turns out, Doc Rivers cannot wave a wand and fix the offense
If you were looking for Doc Rivers to come in, push a few buttons, and make the Sixers a perfectly balanced, modern-looking offensive team, you would be mistaken. Through three games, the Sixers have looked relatively similar to the offenses of previous years, with some things remaining exactly the same.
The biggest change has been an uptick in pick and roll usage, but the numbers haven’t exactly skyrocketed. Through three games, they are 21st in the league in pick and roll frequency, compared to 29th last year. They are running a few of the exact same offensive sets under Rivers that they ran under Brown, and the offense simply looks and feels very similar.
The simple explanation as to why so little has changed is because the personnel is mostly the same, and four of their five leading scorers were on the team last season (Seth Curry being the only new addition). It’s hard to become a perfectly spaced, spread pick and roll offense when you still have hardly any pick and roll workhorses.
The idea of turning Ben Simmons into a pick and roll player sounds great -- and is one that Rivers has harped on repeatedly -- but it’s limited in both quality and quantity. Much of the time, it just leads to his defender going under the screen, and the play going nowhere:
All this being said, the Sixers have clearly made steps in the right direction, both in terms of personnel and schematic decisions. They now have shooting to allow spacing for their best players, and Rivers’ increase in pick and roll usage has allowed players like Shake Milton to take bigger roles in the offense. They are clearly improved, but the lesson to be learned from the first few games is that there are still real limitations at play here. This roster is still thin on perimeter shot creation, and without Embiid carrying the half court offense like he did against Washington and New York, they don’t have viable alternatives.
Ben Simmons’ downhill decision making remains suspect
There are two non-mutually exclusive paths towards Simmons’ offensive game reaching another level: improving as a jump shooter, or improving his decision making and foul-drawing ability when attacking the rim.
The former can be essentially written off at this point, and so far in year four, the latter has seems to remain very much a work in progress.
Simmons’ choices when attacking the rim have been truly bizarre in these first three games. He leaves his feet without a plan repeatedly, and often seems to get into the teeth of the defense with the sole intention of passing. These issues could easily be written off as early season rust, if not for the fact that they’ve been themes dating back to his rookie year.
On the plus side, he’s average seven free throw attempts, which would be by far a career high. There is no doubt a concerted effort from the coaching staff to give him more opportunities to attack downhill, and both Simmons and the coaching staff have been vocal about improving his foul-drawing ability in those situations.
And of course, it is important to note that slow starts have been somewhat of a theme for Simmons in previous seasons. It looked quite clear, for example, that his level of aggression and the quality of his decision making was far better in January of last season than at the very beginning of the year. Perhaps a similar theme will unfold this season.
Still, I find myself confused as to why, in year four, the simple reads haven’t fully clicked for him yet. Why, in this situation for example, does he not realize how easily he could attack Kevin Love and get two points?
I think we are all guilty at times of judging Simmons too harshly because of the amount of unused potential that he has -- we ignore how good he is now and focus on how good he could be if he fixed certain aspects of his game. Still, it is hard not to harp on these types of exchanges when he is so often leaving easy points on the table. Asking him to improve in these areas is not asking for a major skill development that takes years of work; these are simple, simple changes that should’ve been mastered years ago.
Long term, what happens with the starting lineup?
The Sixers have only had a full starting lineup for two games, in which they produced wildly different results -- they were abhorrently bad against Washington, but dominated New York particularly in the third quarter with incredible displays of ball movement.
Still, the continued excellence of Shake Milton will, and probably should, force the Sixers to constantly consider mixing up the starting lineup to fit him in.
My take: I am pro-bringing Milton off the bench so long as he finishes games with the starting lineup in the fourth quarter. As for whose place he takes, I’d probably simply decide between whichever of Curry or Green is having a worse game.
There are a few key benefits of bringing Milton off the bench: he gives you a shot in the arm if you come out flat, he gets to spend less time playing with Simmons and more time handling the ball himself, and he gets to collaborate with Dwight Howard on pick and rolls as opposed to Embiid, who is an inferior PnR threat.
Assuming no other trades, I imagine that the Sixers will eventually succumb and start Milton in the playoffs. But for now, I remain in full support of keeping Shake in the role of 6th man and closer.
Taking stock of fringe bench players
Boy, that was an ugly performance for Tony Bradley in his first minutes as a Sixer against Cleveland. The fact that Rivers felt compelled to go to the Mike Scott at center lineup should tell you all that you need to know there. The Sixers don’t have much of a choice but to play Bradley in nights when Embiid sits, but that performance gave me a bit of pause about the viability of those stints.
In his limited showings this year, Matisse Thybulle has looked more under control than he did in the preseason. He has cut down on his level of aggression on offense, and his defense has been more fundamentally sound. With Furkan Korkmaz now out for two weeks, Thybulle will get his chance to earn minutes.
Tyrese Maxey has had an up and down start to the year. As rookies generally do, he’s looked either a bit too excited or a bit scared in almost all of his minutes. None of that spells long term concern, but I’d venture to guess that his minutes feel boom or bust for the time being. My only real negative takeaway from his showings so far has been that the jumper may not be as far along as I had thought. He’s passing up open 3s left and right, and he had a hideous airball in Cleveland on an open corner 3. Again, Maxey will be fine, but I expect him to continue to experience the ups and downs of being a rookie while still working on a major skill.