It’s already been an eventful season for the 2019-20 Philadelphia 76ers. Entering the season with sky-high expectations, the team is off to a 23-12 start and sits fifth in the Eastern Conference, not exactly where they hoped to be with the calendar ready to flip to 2020.

The mood around the team is a bit sour at the moment as the Sixers are coming off consecutive losses, one to the 13-17 Orlando Magic and one to the Miami Heat in which Philadelphia held a five-point lead with just over a minute to go. Still, it’s important to remember that the team also holds wins over all the other top Eastern Conference contenders: the Bucks, Heat, Celtics, and Raptors.

It’s been a bumpy ride so far, but everything the team hoped to accomplish is still there for the taking. With that, let’s look at four New Year’s resolutions that could help the team get to where it wants to go.

Consistent effort/not playing down to the competition

Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of the Sixers so far this season is their tendency to play down to the competition and a lack of consistent effort, especially at the defensive end.

Regarding the first point, while the Sixers have those aforementioned big wins, they also own losses to teams like the Suns, Wizards, Nets, and Magic. There are going to be letdowns during an 82 game season, but it’s becoming a trend for the Sixers and it could come back to haunt them come playoff time. Elite teams handle their business against lesser opponents, and so far the Sixers haven’t done that.

Equally as disturbing, the team demonstrates wild fluctuations in effort and focus. The Sixers entered the season with expectations of being a defensive juggernaut, and they’ve shown why at times. However, at other times the defensive intensity wanes, and this appears to happen often when the team is struggling at the offensive end. That shouldn’t happen. Elite defensive teams make that end of the floor their foundation, using it to both carry them through offensive lulls and to spark the offense. Instead, the Sixers seem to lose interest in defense when shots start not to fall and end up compounding the offensive issues.

For the Sixers to be the team we expected them to be, they need to start asserting themselves against lesser competition and making consistent defense their foundation.

Cut the turnovers

We sound like a broken record here, as an issue the team has had for years continues to plague it. The Sixers currently rank 20th in the league in turnovers per game at 15.5, up from 15.1 a season ago. Compounding the issue is the fact that the team’s two cornerstones, Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons, are the biggest culprits.

Embiid said he spent the summer working on the issue, and at times he has shown improvement. But at other times he struggles as much as he ever has.

Making matters worse, a lot of these turnovers come late in games, making them even more problematic.

Despite all the roster tinkering, at the end of the day the Sixers will only go as far as Simmons and Embiid take them, and the duo, along with their teammates, need to clean up the turnovers.

Get more from transition

Admittedly, the Sixers aren’t built to be an elite transition team. Still, the team needs to get more out of getting out and running. The team ranks 22nd in the league with 1.062 points per possession in transition, per Synergy Sports, and despite the roster construction, that’s not enough.

Ben Simmons can be a one-man fast break, and his hunting buckets in transition would go a long way toward offsetting some of his other offensive limitations.

In addition to helping Simmons be more productive, an increase in transition scoring could help the Sixers offset the inconsistent shooting they have and will continue to experience. The Sixers have capable shot-makers, but no sharpshooter, and there are going to be nights where the shots aren’t falling. Getting out on the break could help them overcome bad shooting nights.

This iteration of the Sixers is never going to be a run-and-gun type team, but Brett Brown can tinker with the rotations to produce lineups that are more conducive to running, and it’s something he should do to both maximize Simmons’ abilities and to help his team on nights when the shots aren’t falling.

Improved pick and roll play

The Sixers don’t run a ton of pick and roll, but it’s a staple of NBA offense and the team will need to continue utilizing it at least occasionally. So far this season, their production in such situations is poor.

Again per Synergy Sports, the Sixers rank 25th in the league when utilizing the P&R ballhandler, netting 0.792 points per possession. Using the roll man, they rank 30th with 0.964 PPP.

Even if the team doesn’t want to lean heavily on the P&R, it needs to be better. Given the roster construction, the team has plenty of different P&R combinations it can play with. It’s up to Brown to find the right combinations to boost the team’s productivity in such situations.

Josh Richardson, Tobias Harris, Trey Burke, and even Furkan Korkmaz have decent numbers has the P&R ballhandler. Joel Embiid and Al Horford have the skills to be effective in the P&R and can also be a threat to “pop” rather than roll. Using Simmons as a screener is another way Brown can get creative in the P&R, although his refusal to shoot from distance can complicate that option.

Much like getting out on the break, the Sixers aren’t going to be a team that just comes down the court and runs P&R after P&R, and that’s okay. But they also aren’t going to be able to completely ignore it, and Brown needs to find a way for them to be more efficient when they do run it.