A rare silver lining for the Sixers

Thursday was a good day for coach Brett Brown and the 76ers. Everything is relative, of course, but for the Sixers, who take their bright spots where they find them, this qualified as good.

Point guard Michael Carter-Williams, almost fully recovered from offseason shoulder surgery, scrimmaged with the team for the first time on Thursday. He probably won't be cleared to play until next week in Dallas, and there are two games to endure in the interim, but at least he was out there offering some hope in the darkness.

"The team was excited to have him. There was an extra bounce in their step," Brown said.

There wasn't much bounce as the Sixers exited the Wells Fargo Center court the night before, having dropped a close game to the Orlando Magic. The loss left them at 0-5 and provided Orlando, which won just four road games last season, with its only victory of any kind so far.

It was an opportunity to steal a win - which is the only way the Sixers can get them without Carter-Williams - but they committed 10 turnovers in the fourth quarter and scored just 14 points and, well, that is a familiar pattern through the first five games. They led one game after three quarters, were tied in another, and trailed the other three by only five points or fewer. Nevertheless, even counting the two-point loss to Orlando, their average margin of defeat is 10.6 points. What happens in the fourth quarters?

"Teams start playing harder," Brown said.

The Sixers, unfortunately, don't have that gear, so opponents can coast along for a while and then pull away when it becomes necessary. NBA players are nothing if not pragmatic. If it takes only one quarter of full effort to win, that's fine with them.

Brown doesn't appear to let these realities bother him. He circled the court ceaselessly during practice Thursday, stopping the scrimmage occasionally to make a teaching point or to indicate his displeasure with a certain shot or a certain decision. He is saddled with a roster that was constructed to fail, but that doesn't mean he has to coach it that way.

After just five games, the flaws are apparent. Once again, the Sixers are an egregiously poor shooting team that must live and die on its ability to create offense on the dead run early in the shot clock. As a bonus, they are the worst free-throw shooting team in the league and very nearly the worst in turnovers. Add that up and it means the offensive production usually doesn't require very much addition.

The Sixers play at home Friday night against the Bulls, and will do so without Carter-Williams and without center/forward Nerlens Noel, who turned his ankle against Orlando and wasn't able to practice Thursday. You can make arguments that certain other players on the roster would find time in other NBA rotations, but not many of them and not much time. Without both Carter-Williams and Noel, the game might be particularly unpretty.

"I feel we're getting better defensively and can hold the fort and stay in games . . . but our offense has to catch up. Our offense is way behind," Brown said.

Brown attributes that to devoting much of practice to defense, although it could also have something to do with players who can't score on anything but dunks and layups. When the Sixers work on their halfcourt offense, Brown's mission is to get them to take better shots. During his time in San Antonio, the Spurs worked on passing up good shots to get great shots. With the Sixers, it is more like moving the ball in order to turn a lousy shot into an OK shot.

For the first third of the season, Brown has promised the players he won't penalize them for taking open shots, regardless. If you worked to get that shot and it felt good, no problem. For another 20 games or so, that is the bargain, but he's taking notes.

"We chart every shot. It's all taped. We measure it. I can go back and say, 'You know what, Tony or Michael, when people go under pick-and-rolls, you're 11 percent [on three-pointers] and not only that, you've shot 50 of them. The handshake deal is off,' " Brown said.

He didn't pick the names from the air. Tony Wroten and Carter-Williams shot 21.3 percent and 26.4 percent, respectively, on three-pointers last season. No player in the entire league took more and made fewer than those two.

"It's all part of the discussions we have as a staff. And all that is borne out of our stage of development," Brown said.

As it was last season, this is still an early stage. While Joel Embiid heals and Dario Saric is stashed in Europe, while Noel hopefully devises an offensive game and Carter-Williams learns how to play, while next year's lottery pick serves his one season in college, and the eventual free-agent signings and role players orbit out there somewhere - while all that is happening - the development is stalled and the team still stinks. Just as planned.

In that upside-down world, you take the good days and the upbeat moments as they arrive. Thursday was a good day. The next one isn't scheduled yet.

@bobfordsports