DALLAS–The pick-and-roll between Philadelphia 76ers stars James Harden and Joel Embiid on the offensive end is nearly unstoppable for opposing defenses. Between Harden’s playmaking and Embiid’s ruthless scoring ability, there just isn’t much teams can do.
To begin Thursday’s contest with the Dallas Mavericks, which turned out to be a loss due to the fact that Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving dropped 40 points each, the Sixers were able to rely on their star duo to g the team off to a good start. Embiid and Harden were tough to stop from the jump as they had a rather easy path to the basket and were able to execute on that end.
Eventually, the Mavericks figured out how to get some stops and they deserve credit for their adjustments. That is why coach Doc Rivers wants to see the duo take another step forward.
“It was good tonight (Thursday), but there’s another level, in my opinion, that we have to go down the stretch of the games,” said Rivers. “So it was good tonight until the end. I didn’t like it at the end. I didn’t like where we spaced.”
When asked what that next step is for the duo, Rivers explained that he wants better spacing and he wants them to score and pass at the same level.
“Being able to score or create scoring for someone else,” Rivers added. “That’s the next level. Where both of them scoring and both of them are passing at the same time and being able to space the floor and get the ball to the other side of the floor and we score on that side as well. We haven’t done that yet.”
Harden echoed that sentiment as he would like to find some consistency out on the floor with Embiid.
“Consistency,” Harden explained. “For me, I just try to make the game easy for everybody so whether it’s Joel, whether it’s a shooter, that’s my job. Of course, I wanna get our shooters more shots. That’s gonna make our team a lot better.”
[mm-video type=playlist id=01f09kz5ecxq9bp57b player_id=01f1jxkahtwnvzepyp image=]
[lawrence-related id=76313,76284,76287]