The Philadelphia 76ers entered the Golden 1 Center on Tuesday night with the best 3-point defense in the league and they were 4th in the league in defensive rating. They did not look like any of that as they allowed the Sacramento Kings to put up 71 points in the first half and knock down 11 from deep.
The Sixers then locked in and they allowed only 40 points in the second half to win it 119-111 and they forced the Kings into shooting just 3-for-22 from deep in the second half. It was a total change from the first half.
“We just started playing better defense, honestly,” said coach Doc Rivers. “I thought a lot of it too was we kept them out of the paint. That’s what created a lot of 3s. I thought transition 3s were one and then paint 3s. Their transition game is amazing with the speed of (De’Aaron) Fox and some of their other guys. I don’t think we adjusted to it well enough in the first half, I thought we did a much better in the second half.”
In the first half, the speed of Fox to get into the paint allowed guys like Buddy Hield and Tyrese Haliburton to be able to get open from deep with little resistance. The Sixers seemed to be shocked by the speed of Sacramento to begin the game and it threw them off.
“First half was just too comfortable for them,” said Tobias Harris. “They were walking into 3s. Transition was another area that they were getting a lot of looks at, but we were too far back on too many guys, not in their space. I think some of it had to do with us being able to score offensively and then easing up defensively knowing that we were going to score, but once they made the run at the end of the second quarter, we knew coming into the locker room at halftime that we need to step our game up.”
The Sixers understood that they are much better defensively than what they showed in that first half. They had to step it up a bit and really focus on the task at hand.
“Just focusing,” said Ben Simmons. “Literally just us focusing. Defensively, when we’re locked in and communicating, I just don’t see too many teams beating us when we’re playing like that. When we’re executing plays it’s tough. We look very good when we’re doing all of that.”
At the end of the day, the Sixers were able to lock in and get the stops when they mattered most. They just have to continue to build that chemistry within the group on that end of the floor.
“It was a team defensive effort,” said Matisse Thybulle. “We were able to take the pace of the game back a little bit and then on defense, that allowed us to play defense as a team as a five-man group, and all guard the ball and rotate, and more importantly rebound. That was really just the biggest change. We were taking control of the pace and just guarding as a team.”
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