Some thoughts and observations left over from the 76ers’ most recent game, a 108-105 loss to the Denver Nuggets on Saturday at The Center:
Throughout his tenure with the Sixers, Brett Brown has often said he and the coaching staff set specific goals for various stages of the team’s annual schedule. At times, he’s mentioned that he breaks down the season into 20-game quarters. In other instances, he’s talked about dividing each campaign into thirds, with the Christmas holiday, All-Star Game break, and end of the regular season representing the primary demarcation points. This year, Brown seems to be taking a slightly different approach, viewing the season in more narrow “10-game clumps.”Saturday was the Sixers’ 21st outing to-date. Brown indicated that defense would remain a key area of focus as the club heads into its next chunk of the schedule, which he defined as lasting through a December 23rd visit to Milwaukee. “We started out 28 at the start of this last [10-game block], we’re now 18. That means something to me. We walked down the season last year to 12. We went from 28 to 18. We want to move to 15. Points per possession” he said, specifically citing the defensive efficiency statistic. Setting his sights on another area for improvement, Brown continued, “Now we go over to, oh, well, you better score, because right now you can’t. And I think that we can’t because we don’t get enough shots. We turn it over at an extraordinary rate. So we want to go to average 16 turnovers per game. That might sound kind of lenient, but for us, it matters, especially with the speed we play at, and especially having Tony [Wroten] come back. And so points per possession, 18 to 15, we were 28. We want to average 16 turnovers a game and play in that world, and I think that if we can do that, watch what happens to our defense, and watch what happens to our offensive efficiency. Those are our two goals.”Following Saturday’s loss, the Sixers were 19th out of 30 NBA teams in defensive efficiency, posting a rating of 101.9. For perspective, Oklahoma City ranks 15th in the league, with a 100.7 defensive rating. Additionally, by yielding 20 giveaways to the Nuggets, the Sixers saw their turnover per game average rise to 18.7, which stands as the league’s highest mark. In two games prior to the Denver match-up, the Sixers had committed 15 turnovers versus the Los Angeles Lakers, and 13 turnovers against the New York Knicks on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively.
With Jahlil Okafor missing a second straight game, and the Sixers’ backcourt rotation getting reshuffled due to the roster transactions surrounding the return of Tony Wroten, Brett Brown went with his 10th different starting line-up in 21 games. Point guard T.J. McConnell was back with the first group for the first time in five contests, while Isaiah Canaan was again moved to shooting guard. Robert Covington got the nod at small forward, Jerami Grant played power forward, and Nerlens Noel manned the center spot. Brown outlined his rationale.”Mobility,” Brown said. “You become a different team without Jahlil, where you become a little bit more of a pick-and-roll, speed team, and try to complement Nerlens with the appropriate crew. I find, as we’ve talked about, honestly, that’s the challenge right now, the pairings. Who’s best paired up with who? And trying to grow that, and trying to find wins while you’re still developing people.” According to stats.nba.com, McConnell has handled the ball in pick-and-roll situations 45.3% of the time that he’s been on the court this season. That figure ranks fifth among all NBA players who have appeared in at least 20 games. Occupying the five-man position for most of last year, Noel has delivered productive results when rolling to the rim. “It’s all about reading the defense,” said McConnell. “If they’re going to let that little pocket pass go through, I’m going to throw that 10 out of 10 times to Nerlens, and then quarterback the gym and make a play. If they start taking that away, that’s when I start looking for shooters, and then either probing the baseline, looking for that mid-range shot that I shoot.”McConnell, who played for his father, Tim, at Chartiers Valley High School near Pittsburgh, said he was asked to execute “a lot” of pick-and-roll plays his last two years in college, at Arizona.”It just kind of comes as a point guard, and as a coach’s son. You just got to be able to read the defense and make the right play.”
Allen Iverson attended Saturday’s matinee versus Denver, and received his usual strong ovation from the crowd when getting introduced on The Center’s mid-court video board. This past Thursday, in an interview that aired on TNT, host Ernie Johnson spoke with Kobe Bryant, on the heels of his recent retirement announcement, about the “best competitors” he ever confronted over the course of his 20-year career. Without hesitation, the Lower Merion High School gave Michael Jordan and Iverson as his answers. Here’s a link to the conversation, in which Bryant provides his explanation (0:40 mark):http://www.nba.com/video/channels/tnt_overtime/2015/12/03/20151203-inside-kobe-interview.nba/Iverson averaged 35.6 points during the five-game 2001 NBA Finals series, when the Sixers paired up with Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers.
