When a team has such a dominant big man like the Philadelphia 76ers do in Joel Embiid, the other guys on the roster have to do their part in order to space the floor and give him enough room to go to work.
That means they must put up 3-pointers and knock them down at a clip that makes teams pay attention to them. In Friday’s win over the Los Angeles Clippers, the Sixers launched 44 shots from deep and made 14 of them. They made 10 of those 3-pointers in the first half, but they were able to knock them down enough to help Embiid attack the Clippers.
“For sure,” said Embiid. “For example, they doubled me all over the floor tonight. When we started the second half and we kept posting me up and as soon as I touched the ball, they were coming, and I just kept having a bunch of touch passes.”
One of the big reasons for that was the threat of having Furkan Korkmaz out on the perimeter. The fourth-year guard from Turkey knocked down five of his 12 attempts from deep as he certainly had the attention of the Clippers all night long.
“Furkan made a 3 out of that play,” Embiid added. “Just like that, they started going now single coverage, just because of how many 3s they have been giving up.”
When the Sixers are launching a bunch of 3-pointers as they did on Friday, that allows Embiid to do his thing down low. He faces constant double teams on a regular basis, and the help from the perimeter allows him to face more single coverage.
“If teams are gonna want to double, my job is to make the right play,” he explained. “To either score or to find my wide-open teammates and if they start making shots so if we’re getting a lot of 3s, now you leave me playing one on one which is hard to guard for anybody in this league. That’s what I’ve been saying. When we shoot a lot 3s, it’s hard to double. You could see in that third quarter and fourth quarter, it was harder for them to double.”
With Korkmaz getting into a bit of a groove, one can also see his confidence growing. He has certainly had his ups and downs on the floor, but right now, he feels as if he is in a rhythm and he feels that he has found his role in Philadelphia.
“I’m feeling really good right now,” said Korkmaz. “I feel like I’m helping the team a lot, offensive and defensive end. I can handle the ball sometimes when I play with Ben (Simmons) and Jo, also I’m putting the ball down which is really important, and I feel pretty good.”
This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!
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