The Philadelphia 76ers have been working hard during this truncated training camp period as they prepare for what they hope will be a much better season following a tough 2019-20 season.
In order to do that, they will need better spacing around Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid to give them enough room to operate and with the new additions, they feel like they have improved in that area.
Legitimate shooters such as Seth Curry and Danny Green join the fray to help Furkan Korkmaz and Tobias Harris be able to space the court on offense. Philadelphia will not just have to rely on one or two guys as they will now have plenty of other options they can rely on.
The hope now is that Embiid will be able to spot these new shooters quicker and be able to avoid the turnovers in the post that have plagued him in the past.
“When [we] designate our cutters, we designate shooters, you typically don’t want your shooters moving, you want them [their defenders] to go help,” explained coach Doc Rivers. “‘Go help. I dare you. This is Seth Curry. This is Furkan, this is Shake (Milton), this is Tobias. Be my guest.’ What we’re trying to convince our guys is it doesn’t matter who scores when you go to the post, it matters that we score and we have to have that mentality.”
Embiid is one of the elite post players in the game. Every time he gets a touch down low, he either scores or gets fouled. The issue is, he did not have the proper spacing around him in 2020 and that allowed teams to send aggressive double teams and he was not able to respond quickly enough due to the lack of options.
The hope now is that they improved in the shooting department, that it won’t be as easy for teams to force him into those turnovers.
“If you don’t trap Joel, Joel is going to score on you and we’ve talked about that every day so far,” Rivers added. “If you do trap Joel, we’re going to score on you. We’re gonna give you every night, you pick it, but we’re scoring either way. That’s got to be our mindset we clearly have to take care of the ball and I think part of that is the space that we can create for him and the passing lanes that we have to create for him so we can simplify it for him.”
Having a guy like Green will be beneficial for Embiid moving forward. He has played next to some of the more dominant post players in the history of the game such as Tim Duncan and LaMarcus Aldridge as well as LeBron James and Anthony Davis.
His experience playing with those players, as well as his elite shooting, will help Embiid much more.
“I’ve been fortunate enough to do that, but I will tell Jo and ask him where he’s comfortable with what he feels in that area, what does he want me to do,” Green stated. “I’ll also tell him ‘I’m going to be here for you. I’ll be there. I’m usually going to either move this way or move that way so it’ll be an easier path for you’. It’s just a communication factor of feeling each other out and what’s comfortable for both of us to be successful.”
Embiid averaged 3.1 turnovers in the 2019-20 season so if they can get that number lower, it would be such a huge improvement for him and the team.[lawrence-related id=40042,40039,40035]