The Philadelphia 76ers are one of the more oddly constructed teams in the league. They have bucked the recent trend of small ball by building a team by going bigger than everybody else. Due to this fact, the Sixers expectedly have undergone some offensive issues.
They have shooters, but not a sharpshooter, a guy that teams have to circle and underline in red on a scouting report to key in on. Due to that, the offense can look a little out of sorts as they try and play out of a post from Joel Embiid and Al Horford. Sometimes, the Sixers forget about their big men down low and coach Brett Brown has come to a realization that he has to get up and call plays on the offensive end and that’s something he doesn’t necessarily like doing as he would rather have Ben Simmons run things.
“For me, the recognition that the called play environment, which isn’t really the way I want to coach, is needed at times,” said Brown “You’ve got to stand up and be like ‘Hey! Get Jo the ball or get somebody here’ when it’s just jailbreak and it’s open court on misses, I think we’re pretty good and Ben’s elite in open court.”
There was a stretch where Embiid struggled with a turnover issue as he was turning the ball over at an alarming rate. For the Sixers to have any type of offensive success, it’s going to take a lot of understanding on his part that he needs to be the leader on that end and Brown sees improvement from him and the team as a whole offensively.
“I think our post spacing is evolving,” he added. “I think Joel playing out of a post, passing out of a post is evolving. I think we made giant steps in dealing with some zone stuff over the past seven or eight days. I think the rotations, now that we have some health, are a little bit more consistent. People come in and they know play calls that you’re going to put them in, different environments, two-man games, backsides, lob plays, whatever. I think that’s growing.”
If the Sixers can take these little improvements and continue to grow day-by-day, then they are going to become the team that everybody expected out of them. They aren’t going to get it down pat right away, but as this season progresses, there’s going to be little improvements each game to be sure they’re ready to go by the playoffs. [lawrence-related id=22196,22176,22185]