The Philadelphia 76ers continue to have problems with the zone defense in the 2021-22 season. When teams play a zone against the Sixers, they are continuing to have some trouble getting the ball into Joel Embiid and knocking down open shots when the time calls for it.
In Wednesday’s 101-96 loss to the Miami Heat, the Sixers were faced with a zone defense all night long and they struggled against it. They shot only 6-for-19 from deep in the first half as Miami built a 19-point lead and in the third quarter, they shot only 1-for-9 from deep as the Heat built the lead to 23.
The Sixers finally found success offensively late in the third and into the fourth and they rallied to tie the game at 96 before Gabe Vincent drilled a triple for Miami. The problem for this team remains the fact that they are struggling to break a zone and getting the ball into Embiid.
“Ball movement and attacks,” said coach Doc Rivers. “We’ve been very good against zone, we were prepared for it, and tonight, the ball just stayed on the outside. You got to get into the paint. It was no different in the second half when they ran zone and all of a sudden, we got everything we wanted. It was just disappointing.”
The Sixers have got to find a way to bust these zone defenses they will continue to see. In order to do that, they need to attempt more 3-pointers which will lead to more makes and they have to get the ball into Embiid when he has the advantage.
“Gotta make shots,” Embiid explained. “I’m looking at the third quarter, I think I touched the ball maybe once or twice because they kept overloading the side I was on, and that caused a lot of wide-open shots. I’ve been saying it all year. It’s not the first time, we need to shoot them. We need to shoot a lot of them, and obviously, we gotta make them.”
It also didn’t help that the Sixers weren’t able to play with pace. They weren’t able to get out and run the way they would like to and attack the Heat the way Rivers would normally like this team to attack.
“Honestly, we had good looks,” said Tobias Harris. “Some of our shots didn’t fall from it, but I thought we could’ve done a better job of making quicker decisions of driving and getting downhill a little bit, but where I thought their zone was successful was, they were able to set up in their zone all the time because we were taking the ball out from our other end.”
Obviously, the Sixers want to run their offense through Embiid, but in order to do that, they will need to get the ball to him and allow him to work. They couldn’t find a way to get that done against the Heat.
“We got every shot we wanted in the second half running the same stuff,” said Rivers. “We didn’t change our offense, we ran the same stuff. The difference was we didn’t settle, we didn’t hold the ball, and we went downhill. The first half, I don’t know what that was. We didn’t do it and you also have to post Joel more. I thought early on, we were doing that, and then we got away from that.”
The Sixers are going to continue to see a zone until they prove they can bust it. It isn’t going away any time soon.
“It would be a different story if we were able to get those stops and get out in transition and just run and not allow them to set up zone,” Harris added. “It’s something we’re gonna face throughout this year and we have to get better at.”
This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!
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