The Philadelphia 76ers have been undergoing new offensive changes to the way they run things and Monday night was another example of that. With the spacing issues this team continues to deal with, coach Brett Brown has made a bit of a change to how he uses Ben Simmons.
The Sixers have begun using Simmons more as a screen and roller rather than the one who initiates pick-and-roll action. That responsibility has fallen to Josh Richardson and it allows Simmons to use his length and height to finish at the rim.
On Monday, Simmons finished with 17 points as most of his field-goal attempts were at the rim while Richardson had 23 points and four assists in a 120-113 win over the Oklahoma City Thunder. The attention Simmons receives allows him to find his offense.
“Ben is a great guy and a very smart player,” said Richardson. “He makes good reads a lot of the time and he’s easy to play off of. He’s 6′ 10″ and very athletic, so it’s easy to get to a spot and kind of throw it over to him and he’ll usually make something good happen.”
Josh Richardson on his 2-man game development with Ben Simmons #Sixers pic.twitter.com/p0GqjxAWzq
— Ky Carlin (@Ky_Carlin) January 7, 2020
The new wrinkle to the offense will take some time to fully get down, but Simmons is happy with the results so far.
“He’s an amazing talent,” Simmons said of Richardson. “It’s only been a few games where we’ve actually tried it out and it’s been effective so I think we’ll look at it a little bit more.”
If they get more results like they did on Monday night, this will be a long-term advantage for Philadelphia moving forward. [lawrence-related id=22874,22862,22842]