A performance like Thursday night is why the Philadelphia 76ers made the trade deadline move to acquire Alec Burks from the Golden State Warriors. When the Sixers needed some shot creation and some scoring, Burks provided a bit of both.
Burks hopped off the bench and he poured in 19 points while getting to the foul line five times and he scored 5 of Philadelphia’s nine points in overtime in a 112-104 win over the Brooklyn Nets. He gave the team a bit of something that they haven’t had in a while and that’s a guy who can go get his own shot and create for himself from the perimeter.
“Since we got him, I felt like that was another guy that could create his own shot,” said Joel Embiid. “He can come off a screen and just pull up from behind the 3-point line and he’s not afraid to take that shot. We need that. We haven’t really had that the last couple of years so it’s a good sign to see. A great job goes up to EB (Elton Brand) for making it happen.”
The Sixers, of course, rely on Tobias Harris and Josh Richardson to really be their shot creators off the dribble. However, Harris is a guy who likes to find his offense in the rhythm of the offense and Richardson is more of a glue guy rather than a pure scorer. Burks focuses on scoring and getting to the basket.
“Just playing my game,” said Burks. “I don’t know if y’all watched the west coast, but that’s how I play. It’s just me playing my game, trying to feel it out. It’s only my second game…so hopefully it gets better as the season goes on.”
Burks averaged 16.1 points with the Warriors as he has shown that he can put the ball in the basket. The big thing for Sixers fans to remember is, he probably won’t score 19 every night in Philadelphia, but he can certainly fill it up when needed.
“He gives us another guy who can handle the ball and create his own shot,” said Harris. “He has a really good mid-range game and great speed going downhill. He was able to make some huge plays for us, especially in the fourth quarter, and we just fed off of his energy tonight… I think he’s going to be great for us.”
Burks only took one shot in the first half as Philadelphia is still trying to work out some already existing issues and now work Burks and Glenn Robinson III into things, but he took 10 shots in the second half and that’s encouraging. It helped things settle down with Ben Simmons out of the lineup with a back injury.
“We tried to get him the ball in the second half more,” said coach Brett Brown. “Ben’s out so you try J-Rich, I came in with Raul (Neto) started with J-Rich as the backup and then we came in with Shake (Milton), we’re searching a little bit at that position. Ben’s absence put us in that environment and I think in general, the flow of the game was a little bit erratic at the start and Alec certainly came in and did what we scouted him to do.”
As the Sixers continue to move forward, they will need to figure out how many minutes each guy will play in preparation for the playoffs. The play of Burks will help that decision. [lawrence-related id=26202,26193,26174]