The Philadelphia 76ers have a lot to work out in a small amount of time before the season opens up on Dec. 23 against the Washington Wizards. New coach Doc Rivers has to figure out how he’s going to implement his offense plus a rotation.
There is one thing for sure on Rivers’ mind, he does want shooters around stars Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid.
“Just a lot of shooting,” Rivers laughed. “Literally, we have the ability to keep shooting around those two guys and if we do that right, then Ben and Joel can live in freedom. We want to play in space as much as possible. I don’t have any key rotations that I want to try. I have rotations all over the floor that you want to use.”
One new addition that is, for sure, going to earn playing time next to the stars is Seth Curry who has been a lights-out shooter in his career. He is a career 44.3% shooter from deep and he is a guy who can give space to the stars to operate.
“I was with them a lot,” Curry explained. “They put the team together to give them as much space as possible and I’m one of those guys that can, hopefully, take some pressure off of them by giving them space and being able to make plays here and there. The process of getting to learn their games and where they like guys to be, where they would like to get the ball so it’s gonna take some time for a lot of new guys to get used to playing with them, but it’s exciting because anytime on the floor with two of the greatest players in the league, right now, it makes my job easier.”
When it comes to Embiid, specifically, the big fella likes to run a lot of two-man action. Meaning running a lot of pick-and-roll action and some dribble hand-offs with a perimeter player, like JJ Redick in the past, and Curry ran a lot of that with him on Sunday in practice.
“We’re getting used to playing with each other and making the right plays but that’s just a basic play in basketball that made a lot of bigs like to use especially Joel,” the new shooter added. “We’re going to see a lot of that hopefully.”
Back in the lab. #HereTheyCome | @BioSteelSports pic.twitter.com/px0PoDJKN4
— Philadelphia 76ers (@sixers) December 7, 2020
Simple is exactly what Rivers plans on achieving in training camp. If the Sixers can continue to get guys on the same page and work everything out in the simplest form, such as pick-and-rolls for example, then they will be in good shape.
“We can’t get caught with the guys playing in their heads,” the coach finished. “We got to free them up and let them play with as much freedom as quickly as we can.” [lawrence-related id=39929,39923,39920]