'A .500 Ball Club'
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'A .500 Ball Club'
We've spent countless blog posts and comments discussing pick-and-roll defense, defensive rotations, mid-post vs. low-post, and many other x's-and-o's breakdown of each 76ers game.
And there have been 14 of them, the latest of which was tonight's (or is it last night's?) 93-84 loss at the Charlotte Bobcats. We could break down the numbers and the x's and o's again ... No, the Sixers didn't defend the pick-and-roll well. Yes, the Bobcat shooters were left open on the defensive rotation. No, the Sixers couldn't make an outside shot.
But I don't know what answer we've gotten from the numbers yet. It seems the Sixers' problems have less to do with some specific mechanical adjustment and more to do with a non-existent flow and rhythm within this team.
Beginning with the Oklahoma City Thunder, the Sixers played five teams they should have beaten. They finished 3-2, including a one-point win over the Los Angeles Clippers at home. The Sixers next two games are against the Orlando Magic and the defending NBA Champions, the Boston Celtics.
Here's what Elton Brand had to say about that: "We're not looking at records. We can't look at records. You look at Minnesota's record and Charlotte's record and you say we should win. You look at the records of the teams coming up and you say we should lose."
And Willie Green: "We have games like today we expected to win on paper. When we can be consistent enough to come into arenas and get wins, we'll be a better team. Until then we'll be what we are ... .500 ... We want to take the positives out of every situation. These are crucial games for us coming up, but we took a step back tonight."
More from Elton Brand (when asked how things are going so far in Philly): "It's going ok. We're a .500 ball club. We expected to be better than that. And we will be better than that."
The lingering question that arises is, "When?"
I don't claim to know the answer. I know I've watched the Sixers for stretches and thought, "There it is." And then a few minutes later wondered, "Where'd it go?"
So for this one post, I'm not going to dissect the offensive flow through Brand, or analyze Andre Iguodala's footwork on his outside shot, or wonder if a different rotation might have been better in a certain situation.
After the game, Cheeks spoke at length about how the biggest problem tonight was stopping the pick-and-roll at the point of attack. And so I asked Samuel Dalembert about defending the pick-and-roll because I wanted to understand where the breakdown was occuring. Was it the post player not showing hard enough? Was it the guard being lazy getting through the screen? Was it neither, but rather the rotational defender not taking away the outlet pass?
But Dalembert kept shaking his head.
"It's not one specific thing," he said. "It's the communication as a whole. Even if it's not the exact way we drew it up, if we communicated, we could make it work."
--Kate
I forget which sixer it was, but one of them said in a recent interview that they'll only be able to use the "its still early" excuse for so much longer. This is the 15th game of the season, we've just squandered a couple games that were quite winnable, and we've now got some very tough games coming up. Orlando gives us fits - Sammy is too skinny to gaurd Howard, and Brand is not tall enought(though i have to say Reggie has done a decent job at times just drawing fouls and keeping "Superman" off the court that way). We always have trouble gaurding the perimeter and they have shooters. Boston is...well, Boston is Boston. So two very tough games coming up. 7-7 is what is it is for a "gelling" team, but you don't want to fall to 7-9, IMO(at that poing, you're a loosing team and only 4 games away from the 20 game mark that most GM's say they use to evaluate a team's potential). Following Kate's example, I'm not going to re-hash any basketball criticism here, just suffice to say the obvious, that we to pull it together and get some positive momentum going by pulling one of these out.— K,M- I think your first problem was asking Samuel Dalembert about defense. He is not well versed in basketball and his fundamentals are non-existent. He has not played basketball very long and he seems to digress every year.— Horlet
- I love cheeks, but he has got to do a better job of getting this team up for games, I do not see the energy of last years team. Also Mo has to set his rotation better, no one knows who's playing from nite to nite. Please, someone tell Lou Williams that he is not the next AI and to try and pass the ball instead of chucking 3's from all over the court. This team needs to be aggressive and run to be effective and they are not either right now!!!— lalleva
- one step at a time. Let them make the playoffs. Get hot, and go all teh way. This year will, hopefully, be better then last year and so on. You can't build ROme in a day (unless you're Boston)— jeff gross
- OK. I'm calling for heads. When will they get it together? Who knows. But at this point it almost doesn't matter because when (if) they do they will have a huge whole to dig out of. As they are getting it together, teams with better records will be improving. They are loosing their opportunities by the day. Time to call for heads: 2nd string, bring it, or get out. AI, this is supposed to be your team. Cheecks, make it gel. If the playoffs began today they wouldn't even be in it.— HD1
- statman: you're right about the interior defense picking-up a bit but cheeks and others noted the continued problems against defending a simple pick&roll verison in the 2nd half. agree about last year's 2Q max energy unit. srvdove: totally right about marshall. no reason not to throw him in there when we need to make up some ground (which is becoming sop). kate: i wonder how effective their communication can be when they simply seem to lack a basic understanding of what to do, as evidenced in your q&a. if they can't really communicate or explain it when asked, how can they get it right in games. as this problem has been evident since early last year, it is fair to ask if they really understand it. nothing quoted so far indicates they know what they really know what they need to do. many people can say the right things but when it comes to performance, it's evident they don't really know it or know how to apply it.— 127sixer59
- 127: My point is they can articulate what they need to do. I think we can all point to the four or five things that need to be done. But the reality is that the difference between winning and losing right now is not them KNOWING what they need to do, it's actually communicating and getting it right while they're on the floor.— Kfagan
- One other thing, I didn't see the game because it was on CN8 (don't get that up here in the lehigh valley) but I looked at the boxscore and reggie played 16 minutes compared to speight's 8 minutes. I just haven't liked the sixers this year with Reggie in the lineup. That is too many minutes for him. He is such a liability on offense. Speights has some range on his shot and could have provided a lift since Brand was in foul trouble.— zebra
- I agree with all the comments about the Sixers needing to play with Energy. They just aren't good enough (particularly shooting-wise) to roll over teams without playing a high energy style of basketball. They have to amp up the defense if they are going to be anything more than a .500 team.— zebra
Also might be nice to see Marshall in the game when we are down 8-9 points with a couple of minutes left and need some threes, if he gets an open shot he is miles better than anyone else on the team.— srvdove- Eric Snow made a comment about the Sixers pressing full court to cause some of the turnovers we need to get into our fast break. Something we did a lot of last year to the point that I thought, aren't these guys going to get worn out? Does it seem they are doing any of that at all so far? I have only seen a few brief moments that looked like last years team in terms of aggressive play...last night Iggy pressured at or above the 3 point line, caused a turnover and immediately got the ball out and with another quick pass and the sixers had three guys ahead of everybody...that happened a lot last year I thought. A moment last night also was when Iggy was on the oppposite side and as the sixers shot the ball he started heading back up court and the rebound came right towards his side...there was no aggrssion to go after the ball. I think when you struggle it compounds itself by sapping the hustle and energy to do the things that are easy to do when you are playing well. The only way to jump start that might be to increase the defensive pressure ie full court?— srvdove
- 127: while their perimeter defense could have been better, I would say their interior defense was actually pretty good, other than a couple of drives by Shannon Brown. Bobcats' PF-C spots combined for 5-16, and they took down only 4 offensive rebounds as a team. They just shot an extremely high pct. (esp. for them) from the outside. I definitely agree with you about Lou needing to focus more on penetrating. tktk and others also have a good point about the team not being as high-energy, and it's party because of the change in personnel (Brand is not that type of player, and Thad is playing differently with increased minutes). They also miss last year's high-energy, 2nd quarter "wreak havoc" lineup of Thad-Iguodala-Lou-Reggie-Carney.— Statman
- kate: if the players can't articulate/conceptulize defending the pick&roll, it's going to be difficult for them actually execute any meaningful/consistent defense. and the offensive mentality still is strange: williams firing up hopeless 3 pt shots-at least when he drives, good things can often happen even if he doesn't dish well. and if this team doesn't take teams like the t-wolves or bobcats seriously, they'll join them or at best be medicore. statman: as always, good observations but again not taking advantage of turnover opportunities as well as weak interior/exterior defense and playing some not-smart b-ball doomed them-and will continue to until they make some adjustments.— 127sixer59
- I take a slightly different view of this game. While the Sixers' defense wasn't stifling, they didn't play much differently than they have all year, and in some respects they played better (forcing 20 turnovers, for example). I didn't see Charlotte getting a ton of layups; they just hit a ton of jump shots (challenged or not), with a majority of those jump shots made by three guys who average around 40% (Augustin, Felton, Morrison). Sometimes you have to give credit to the other team for playing a good game. On offense, I think we're starting to see a case of "water seeking its own level" -- Iguodala looked better on his jumper (couldn't possibly be as bad as he was) and Thad looked worse (couldn't possibly be as good). I'm hoping Thad will start to limit his 3-point attempts, because he's more of a threat as a post player (and in better position to crash the offensive boards). Lou needs to limit his 3-point attempts too, because he's starting to get his penetration game in order.— Statman
- Win or lose this team has failed to be enjoyable to watch. Even when the team was floundering early in the post-AI revuilding I liked watching the team. Right now they are so disjointed it is hard to watch. All I see is individual frustration and the players do not seem to be part of a team.--------------- How a team goes from the best to the worst chemistry in one year by simply adding a good player is beyond me.— tktk
- Until Mo is able to convince these guys that they are not good enough to win without playing aggressive pressing defense, they will flounder. Mo probably needs to press more full court and more half court traps right from the begininng of the game to ingrain that in them. They are a team searching for a personality, yet they already established their personality last year. With Brand, all of a sudden they are confused in thinking they are a different team, a team that doesn't need to play hard defense and run ALL THE TIME.— JBP
- I really dislike this teams bench aside from Willie Green. Some other observations 1) Lou Williams needs to go and we need to get a pass first backup point guard in here. 2) Cheeks seems to have no idea about when to sub guys in and take guys out. I think he left the bench in too long at the start of the 4th. 3) Eddie Jordan is available, I really think he would be a great coach for this team.— williebert
- I really dislike this teams bench aside from Willie Green. Some other observations 1) Lou Williams needs to go and we need to get a pass first backup point guard in here. 2) Cheeks seems to have no idea about when to sub guys in and take guys out. I think he left the bench in too long at the start of the 4th. 3) Eddie Jordan is available, I really think he would be a great coach for this team.— williebert
- The character of this team is a completely different animal from the squad that finished last year. There wasn't a single night last year when that team took a win for granted. It's a shame this team can't recapture that. Yet. I still have faith that they can catch a little fire. Maybe playing the higher caliber opponents is what they need.— the_other_craig
John Mitchell is in his second year covering the 76ers for the Inquirer after joining the paper in November 2011. He covered the Washington Wizards for the Washington Times from 1998 to 2008. He's also worked at the Philadelphia Tribune, the Wilmington News Journal, Courier-Post, Trenton Times and Elmira Star-Gazette.Born and raised in West Philadelphia - not too far from Will Smith - he graduated from Overbrook High School the same year the 76ers won their last championship. He's a proud graduate of Howard University and the proud father of two sons, Jared and Jordan.
ABOUT MARC NARDUCCI
Marc Narducci has served in a variety of roles with the Inquirer since beginning in 1983. He has covered the 76ers as a backup and a beat writer. In addition, Narducci has covered everything from the Super Bowl to the World Series and a lot in between. Narducci also has a true passion for South Jersey scholastic sports, which he has covered for many years.
