The Philadelphia 76ers are coming off a road trip where they went 1-3 and took a bit of a tumble down the standings as they are now the 6 seed in the East, but there were some positives from the trip.
One is that Shake Milton really continued his breakout season and he has earned himself a larger, more permanent role on this team. Another was the play of Al Horford who averaged 15 points, 9.3 rebounds, and 5.5 assists on the trip and also making a bit of Sixers history on the trip as well.
The big question that is on the mind of everybody is what will coach Brett Brown do when Joel Embiid returns from injury? Does Horford go back to the bench?
“I think I can answer that more honestly when that time happens,” said Brown at practice on Tuesday.
Fair enough, but the Sixers paid Horford a large sum and for him to come off the bench would be a little much. It’s all about getting him and Embiid to co-exist.
“I feel going forward when you don’t have Ben (Simmons), my intention is to play him with Joel and try to grow that,” Brown added. “When Ben comes back in the mix, we’ll re-evaluate, but I feel like that period of time that we’re talking about is long enough for me where I do want to invest in the Joel-Al pairing while we don’t have Ben and see where that plays out.”
For the Sixers, their intended starting lineup was Simmons, Josh Richardson, Tobias Harris, Horford, and Embiid. That lineup has been terrific on the defensive end, but it has been a train wreck on the offensive end. With Embiid on the floor without Horford and vice versa, the offense looks fine.
For example, on the road trip, the Sixers averaged 119 points per game and they even shot 43.5% from deep and that was without Embiid and having Horford run things. On the season, the Sixers average 109.4 points and shoot 36.4% from deep.
The big challenge that Brown and this team are dealing with is getting the offense to run smoothly with them both on the floor. Simmons will most likely be out for at least another week so that gives Brown some time to really figure things out before the playoffs begin.
He has 18 games to do so. [lawrence-related id=27438,27430,27420]