The Philadelphia 76ers are still a brand new team that has had to work through a lot of changes as well as the team being hit with injuries as well as the league’s health and safety protocols. That has been a big reason why the team still looks discombobulated at times on offense.
In their most recent games, the Sixers had 17 and 18 turnovers in their two games with the Miami Heat and they then had 22 turnovers in Saturday’s loss to the Memphis Grizzlies including a costly one late from Tobias Harris. These are issues that must be corrected as the season wears on.
A lot of the turnover issues can be attributed to not having a full team. The Sixers have had to rely on so many guys playing out of position and that can be tough for anybody.
“I think a lot of that is just bad basketball that we have to be better at with our spacing and trying to force it,” said coach Doc Rivers. “A lot of it is, again, you have all these guys out, you have all these guys playing different positions. Clearly, you’re gonna have a better executing team when everybody’s healthier and, in my opinion, we’ll cut down on the turnovers.”
On Saturday, the Sixers were missing Joel Embiid, Seth Curry, and Furkan Korkmaz who are three of the team’s regular players. That plays a factor in their sloppiness and when combined with the fact that they have not been able to practice as much, it makes for some big issues.
“Things get loose when you don’t have a chance to practice and slow down and iron things out,” said Matisse Thybulle. “It also gets hard when you got guys who you’re used to having play and guys who aren’t playing and we’ve had lineups get switched around, we haven’t had practices. I feel like considering (that) we’ve been doing pretty good.”
Tuesday was a good practice day for Philadelphia as they were able to work some things out for the first time in a while. On top of that, they had plenty of guys return to the floor.
“I think today was huge for us,” Thybulle added. “Then just to get our guys back out there and be our full team, minus Seth, I think would be pretty good for us.”
All of that makes Rivers feel confident that the turnover issues will be correct as they continue to get everybody back healthy.
“Also,” he finished. “If you put Joel on the floor and Seth on the floor and Furkan on the floor, you’re probably going to have less turnovers as well.”
The Sixers will host the Boston Celtics on Wednesday to begin a quick two-game home series with their rivals.
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