The Philadelphia 76ers knew that this would be a tough road trip for them. They would be facing two of the top teams in the league to begin the trip with the Los Angeles Clippers and then the Los Angeles Lakers and they would have to do so without Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid before losing Josh Richardson as well.
The one area that coach Brett Brown would like for them to improve was in the 3-point shooting department. A lot of Philadelphia’s struggles on the road can be attributed to their lack of 3-point success on the road compared to at home.
They shot 21-for-43 from deep against the Clippers on Sunday and they shot 16-for-40 against the Lakers on Tuesday. Those are solid numbers for this team on the road.
“I think they’ve done a great job,” Brown said. “I like the quantity, we put up 40 tonight. That is a number, with the injuries, that interests me, even exceeding that, truthfully.”
With the injuries all over their lineup, the Sixers will have to play a certain way. They will have to play faster, they will have to scrap a bit more, and they will have to fire up more threes in order to score their points. They won’t be able to rely on Simmons or Embiid to bail them out.
So, keep firing them away.
“To find shooters in the way that we did, moving the ball, understanding the different rotations where we can get our shooters shots, delivering balls where they don’t really have to reach, they actually can catch and shoot it against a long, athletic team and get shots off, all those things I think were a positive,” Brown explained. “It is true, as a team we shot the ball well tonight (Tuesday) and we need to given the situation that we have.”
The Sixers put on some pretty solid performances to begin this road trip. It was a tough ask of this team to go into Staples Center and beat two really good teams in the Clippers and the Lakers on the road being so shorthanded. Tobias Harris, Glenn Robinson III, Furkan Korkmaz, and others will have to keep shooting it from deep to help the team move forward.
If they can put on another performance such as these ones against the Sacramento Kings on Thursday, then they will give the team a good chance to win. [lawrence-related id=27085,27075,27065]