The Philadelphia 76ers made an interesting adjustment on Sunday in their thrilling comeback win over the Indiana Pacers. They had a lot of trouble stopping Indiana’s guards from getting into the paint, so coach Doc Rivers made a switch to a zone defense.
At the top of the zone, he threw out his two best defenders in Ben Simmons and Matisse Thybulle and the two of them caused a lot of havoc. They are both terrific defenders who can use their length and defensive instincts to disrupt anybody’s offensive flow.
“I feel like it was great. It probably sucked for the Pacers, it’s fun,” laughed Thybulle. “Whenever Ben and I can get out there and start playing defense together and start making things happen, we love it.
The two of them had four steals each and they were able to get their hands on a lot of passes.
“It was a heck of a zone,” smiled coach Doc Rivers. “With those two guys and then with Dwight’s (Howard) size in the middle of the paint clogging things up, it gives you a chance to be pretty effective. You can basically cut off the top of the floor and I thought those two guys did that.”
A zone defense can be tough to run at times. Teams in the NBA don’t run them all that often as they would much rather run a man-to-man so Simmons wanted to keep it simple in what he wanted to do.
“Deflections,” he said. “Just trying to give them different looks and make sure they’re not getting easy shots. Indiana’s the type of team that wants to go one-on-one so when you have Matisse and I at the top of the key, it’s kind of tough to do that not knowing who’s gonna pick you up.”
All of those deflections and all of the activity that Simmons and Thybulle caused Indiana to only score 15 points in the fourth quarter. The Pacers tried their best to dump it down to star big man Domantas Sabonis, but the Sixers quickly were able to collapse on him between Howard’s presence plus the activity from the two defenders at the top.
“Once they threw it into Sabonis, it’s hard for him also,” Simmons explained. “He had two guys reaching from behind trying to steals so it’s just a different look.”
This is a look that will most likely be looked at again in the future should the Sixers struggle with any opponent. They have the personnel to run it and be successful with it with guys like Simmons, Thybulle, and then Howard or Joel Embiid down low. It can be successful.
This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!
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