When the Philadelphia 76ers acquired Seth Curry from the Dallas Mavericks back in November, the expectation was that he would be a guy who would space the floor for Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons to operate. Another expectation was that, hopefully, he could build a similar relationship with Embiid like JJ Redick did.
Curry came up large late in Tuesday’s win over the Toronto Raptors when he iced the game with a huge triple from the top of the key to put Philadelphia up 96-91 late. The shot came off some action with Embiid as the two of them worked a nice two-man game down the stretch.
“It’s feeling pretty good,” Curry said of his relationship with Embiid. “It’s natural when you have a big who sets good screens first and foremost, but then he can pop and he can roll. He can catch lobs, he can do it all.”
Every Raptors defender is looking at Embiid here.
He handles the extra pressure well and makes a good pass on time to find Seth Curry for a huge 3-pointer. pic.twitter.com/TOYnwVpHJ8
— Tom West (@TomWestNBA) December 30, 2020
The action in the shot for the win involved a dribble handoff and then Curry and Embiid worked from there.
“It’s just my job to come off, be aggressive, make shots, but also getting the ball in a position where he can score,” Curry added. “We’re just figuring it out as we go along and it’s good to make some clutch plays the first game of the year and tonight while we’re figuring out our end of game offense.”
It is Embiid’s job to be sure that he gets Curry open off of that action. The ability of Embiid to be able to set the screen and then immediately get himself open, draw the double, and then find Curry open for the triple was a big deciding factor in the win.
“We’re still learning,” Embiid said. “I didn’t expect to come in and just have the same chemistry that I had with JJ. It’s going to take time. We had a few moments where he tried to set a pick on my guy, just like I used to do with JJ. So we’re getting there, but I got to get him open.”
When a team combines one of the better players in the game with one of the better shooters in the game, good things will happen. The pairing now just has to continue to grow off of that and move forward.
“Those dribble hand-offs, when I do that, I got to set screens because if my man gets up on him, then I’m wide open and I got a mismatch,” Embiid continued. “More than likely, he’s going to be wide open because everybody that I play against, they don’t want to leave me alone. The gravity that I have as a screener can help us go a long way.”
The Sixers will now board the plane and head down to Orlando to take on the Magic on New Year’s Eve.
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