The Philadelphia 76ers made a move on Tuesday night that probably had to be made. They moved Al Horford to the bench in favor of starting Furkan Korkmaz in his place in order to provide more shooting and spacing to a starting lineup that desperately needed it. It resulted in a 110-103 win over the Los Angeles Clippers.
Horford scored nine points and six rebounds as he continues to try and find his niche on this team and maybe Tuesday was a step forward in finding that peace with his new team.
“It was originated out of I thought that they were going to go small,” said coach Brett Brown. “I think that in general, I spoke to Al about it, we’re trying to find ways to help him and help the team. I felt that the time was appropriate to do it if we could get that second unit going with Al. We did it with (Manu) Ginobili long ago, Al is obviously a quality player and how I end games will be the judgment. Tonight, we rolled out those big guys for a while, they went small, so did I, and the decision to rotate him was because of that.”
Being such a team-oriented veteran, Horford had no qualms when he got the news from Brown.
“All class,” said Brown. “I said exactly what I just said. Right now, this starting group has been struggling, you’ve done nothing wrong, I keep myself up late at night trying to find ways to better coach it and fix it and let it co-exist and to date, after 50-whatever games, we’ve struggled a little bit.”
The move paid off in a sense where Joel Embiid had enough room down low to operate to do what he does best and they rarely played together. Horford came in for Embiid at the 7:16 mark of the first quarter and then Embiid reentered for him at the 10:06 mark of the second quarter before he returned for Embiid at the 3:38 mark.
They then alternated coming in for the other like that before they both shared the floor together for the first time since the 2:31 mark of the third quarter and that lineup went until the 9:19 mark of the fourth. They then had some more time together down the stretch.
“I feel like I can help you play at the level that you can play at,” Brown added. “You kept us up late at night with scouting reports trying to figure you out and I think it can be a win-win and he’s all class. He’s a great teammate, he understood, and it was a high-level adult conversation that I appreciate. I respect.”
The Sixers are a team that is still searching for a real offensive identity and this move gave the team a better look at how they plan on doing things. They should absolutely continue to try this moving forward. The space to allow Embiid to operate was apparent and the success Tobias Harris had at the power forward spot was something to behold.
“I say this in an exciting way, it’s not a traditional type team,” Brown continued. “If it’s taken us this long to try and figure some things out and we arrive at a place that we’re all happy with and we’re prepared for the playoffs, we’re moving…we’re moving along and we’re learning.”
As the team heads into the All-Star break now, they should definitely continue to take a deeper look into this and continue to move forward. [lawrence-related id=25557,25530,25520]