Cooney: Sixers need to Jazz up their pick-and-rolls

IT WAS A practice in futility on Monday at the Wells Fargo Center. The NBA game has turned into one that is heavily loaded with pick-and-rolls. Picks set at the top of the key, on either side. Picks set in one corner or the other on the floor.

If you watched the 76ers play the Utah Jazz Monday, you saw two teams that are polar opposites in their ability to play that part of the game - on both ends of the floor.

Rudy Gobert, the 7-1, 24-year- old center playing in his fourth season after being taken with the 27th overall pick by the Jazz, signed a contract worth $100 million over four years last month, basically because he's fundamentally sound in the areas where his team wants him to be - setting picks and playing defense. Not a bad gig if you can get it.

Repeatedly on Monday, Gobert would stride down the floor with athleticism that seemed to resemble a newly born giraffe more than a professional athlete, then stop at the top of the key to seek out a Sixers' defender. Whoever was covering Shelvin Mack, Rodney Hood or Gordon Hayward felt Gobert's picking presence. He finds bodies, gets low - equivalent to an offensive lineman in football - and at least changes the direction in which the defender wants to chase or holds him off completely.

It really is an art form, learning how to properly set picks, and Gobert is a master. Maybe it helps that Jazz legends John Stockton and Karl Malone carved Hall of Fame careers running the pick-and-roll for so many years. Or perhaps Gobert has just been taught properly the importance of how beneficial that art still is in this league.

It all seems so simple, really, especially when you watch tape of Gobert against the Sixers and how holding a pick for a half-second longer led to such easy baskets.

And then you watch the Sixers both try to defend and run pick-and-rolls, and you get an idea why the team has started the season 0-6, and why fans are getting a little antsy about the coaching position and why they are losing patience with The Process all together.

Gobert's length is a big factor why he is such a good pick-setter. There are limbs all over the place. But he is terrific at getting his body into the middle of a player, holding him off, then rolling to the basket. This makes the now-lone defender in the two-man set have to decide whether to pop out on the shooter or recover back to Gobert. So many times on Monday, the Jazz made the correct reads and found open jumpers or the offensively challenged Gobert rolling to the basket. Every time a pick was set by Utah, the on-the-ball defender was hindered or totally taken out of the play.

The Sixers rarely were good on defense Monday, and really haven't been all season. Coach Brett Brown wants them to climb over the top on picks set for good shooters, as to not allow them the space to load up. On players who are better penetrators, he wants his defenders to go under the pick to clog the driving lanes. But the team isn't doing well at recognizing which player is which, not doing a good job of getting help and recovery from their big men and still can't seem to grasp the rotation thing. It looks, most times, like an ineffective mad scramble with hope of a missed shot being the only constant.

"The past couple of games, I think I've done a better job of setting screens and making contact, which I wasn't doing at the beginning," said Joel Embiid, who will not travel with the team to Wednesday's game in Indianapolis as part of his recovery schedule. "We're working on it and we're definitely going to do a better job."

Embiid has a skill set ideal for high pick-and-rolls, as he is more than capable of stepping out after a pick for a jumper, roll down the lane and catch the ball on the move, or simply shield the smaller guard and back him down into the lane. Problem is, whether it's Embiid or the guards he's setting for, there isn't much, if any, contact between picker and defender. Most times, the play is blown up even before it has a chance to start. We saw it at the end of the Orlando game with Embiid and Sergio Rodriguez, and many other times throughout the short season.

"When you have teams that hedge bigs, then slipping (the pick) is good, you create separation," Brown said. "Dario (Saric) and Ersan (Ilyasova), a lot of teams switch that, so slipping is good. You need to mix in having those hard screens with those four men, too. As it relates to Jahlil (Okafor) and Joel, you want to try and set more than slip more. You want to hold that screen a little bit longer and you want to get that lower base and get your head lower than their head. Holding screens, forcing defensive players to go over, that is ideal."

When run correctly, it is one of the most simple and effective plays in basketball. With all the young and unfamiliar faces on the roster, simple should be an avenue the Sixers travel often.

@BobCooney76

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