The Philadelphia 76ers are a team that is built on defense, speed, and length. However, the complete opposite happened on Saturday in their restart opener as they fell to the Indiana Pacers 127-121 and they allowed T.J. Warren to score a career-high 53 points.
Warren’s heroics aside, the Sixers allowed the Pacers to score a ridiculous 46 points in the fourth quarter and that was what did them in. It was troubling considering Indiana was missing All-Star Domantas Sabonis as well as former Rookie of the Year Malcolm Brogdon. Warren scored 19 of those 46 for Indiana.
As the team got back to practice on Sunday, that is something that must be addressed.
“For me, you look at the defensive intensity coming out in the third period. I liked what I saw,” said coach Brett Brown. “I liked watching Ben Simmons sit in a stance and get stuck into T.J. Warren at times. I liked watching J-Rich (Josh Richardson) stalk the Holiday brothers around. Then you fast forward and you say ‘A 46 point closeout period?’ That’s not acceptable. You’re not going to do anything of value unless you fix that so that’s where my head is at. You’re going to come in today and speak the truth and hold these guys’ spirit together, but the toughness question is a simple answer for me.”
Just for reference, Warren scored 24 points and shot 9-for-10 from the floor when defended by Simmons. It was an overall disappointing effort for a guy who is a legitimate Defensive Player of the Year candidate.
T.J. Warren when Ben Simmons was his defender, per NBA dot com's matchup data: 9-10 from the field, 5-5 from three, 24 points.
— Rich Hofmann (@rich_hofmann) August 2, 2020
It was a game that showed that the Sixers need to get tougher as a team. They will not go deep into the playoffs or achieve their objective if they do not become mentally tougher and figure out their issues on a regular basis, then they won’t last long in the playoffs and that’s just the facts put plainly.
“The toughness aspect is and will always be, that is the thing that allows you to put a crown on some team,” Brown continued. “There’s no team that I’ve ever been around in 20 years of this league that you say ‘Wow that was a pretty team. They just outran, outscored, and out finessed everybody and they’re the champions’. I’ve never seen that once. In fact, it’s not even close.”
The toughness factor will affect two aspects for Philadelphia and that is their work on the defensive end and the number of turnovers they committed. Shake Milton, for example, had a rough night as he was bothered by the pressure put on by Aaron Holiday and T.J. McConnell and that is something that Brown would like to see fixed.
“There were seven of them that were like a moving screen, there was an offensive foul just driving to the basket, the turnovers that most upset me are like a sloppy pass or something like trying to get Shake the ball full court and T.J. mugs him,” Brown added. “The turnovers are probably eight of them that you just say ‘that’s not good enough’.”
Their next matchup is Monday against the San Antonio Spurs and that will give the team their next shot at figuring out their issues moving forward. [lawrence-related id=36010,35999,35982]