Some thoughts and observations left over from the 76ers’ most recent game, a 129-103 loss to the Dallas Mavericks on Sunday at American Airlines Center. To best access this content on a mobile device, select the “view in browser” option.
A game after fouling out for the first time in his NBA career, Jahlil Okafor displayed immediate purpose on Sunday against the Dallas Mavericks. Thirty-six seconds into the opening quarter, he floated home the first of his 12 field goals. Within the next two minutes, he had knocked down three more buckets. By the time Brett Brown had finally given Okafor a breather with just over two minutes left in the period, the rookie center’s box line spoke for itself. He had scored 18 points, hit eight of his nine shots, all while making Dallas’ defensive attempts – particularly those of Zaza Pachullia, who is 11 years Okafor’s senior – look futile. Whether he was marked by Pachullia, rookie Salah Mejri, or veterans Chandler Parsons and Wesley Matthews, Okafor used both finesse and power to have his say in the first period. “My teammates were getting me the ball in good position to score,” Okafor said of the factors that contributed to his showing. “They kept telling me to be aggressive.”And aggressive Okafor was. He delivered four dunks (shown below), which is a relatively high volume figure for Okafor (a season-high, in fact), despite the fact that he scores so frequently and proficiently at the rim. Per stats.nba.com, the Duke product entered the evening with 33 total slams.Having exhausted virtually all of his traditional low post defensive options towards the end of the first half, Dallas head coach Rick Carlisle finally decided to give small forward Chandler Parsons a crack at defending Okafor, even though Parsons is two inches smaller and about 45 pounds lighter than the Sixers’ center. Parsons put forth far more physical resistance than any of his predecessors, and remained on Okafor for most of the third quarter.That the Mavericks allowed Okafor to go four for 10 from the floor in the aftermath of his smoldering first-quarter effort reflects, in part, the success behind their defensive adjustments. On the other hand, it would have been a tall order – Anthony Davis at Detroit-esque [link] – for Okafor to maintain a similar rate of production for the rest of the game. To Okafor’s credit, when his shots stopped falling as regularly as they did in the first period, he still managed to get to the free throw line, where he knocked down five of six tries between the second and fourth frames. In all, Okafor was seven for 10 on his foul shots, and has converted 20 of 24 attempts from the stripe this month.As skilled as Okafor has been offensively, he leads all first-year players with an average of 17.4 points per game, and on Sunday became just the third rookie to reach the 30-point mark, he and the Sixers both recognize that his continuing defensive development is a top objective. “We obviously had a hard time stopping them,” said Okafor. “They are a veteran team, and they played a really good game.”
The Sixers’ now-completed swing through the southern tier of the United States, which stopped in New Orleans and Dallas, represented their first two games back from the NBA All-Star break. What takeaways can be gleaned so far?From an offensive standpoint, things have gone well, as the Sixers have manufactured two of their 10 best single-game offensive ratings this season. They generated 112.2 points per 100 possessions in Friday’s seven-point loss to the Pelicans, and 109.6 points per 100 possessions in Sunday’s 26-point setback to the Mavericks. Overall, the Sixers’ offensive rating since returning from their eight-day hiatus is 107.8, while their true shooting percentage is 61.5. Just to provide a frame of reference (not, however, for the sake of comparison), in examining full-season statistics, only three NBA teams – Golden State, Oklahoma City, and San Antonio – have offensive ratings higher than 107.8, and no club has a true shooting percentage greater than the Warriors’ 59.3. Versus New Orleans in particular, the Sixers matched a season-high with 114 points, and converted 52.6 percent of their field goal attempts, their third-best mark of the year. Below, find the Sixers’ shot chart from their past two contests. While the Sixers have held their own offensively the last two tilts, they have taken hits on the defensive end. They surrendered 121 points to the Pelicans, before spotting 129 points to the Mavericks. Their defensive rating during this stretch is 124.1. Worth keeping in mind is that Brett Brown prioritizes defense above all else. “Our problem was our defense, for sure,” Brown said following the Sixers’ loss to Dallas. The game featured segments where Jahlil Okafor, a center, defended Dirk Nowitzki, the Mavericks’ power forward. Also, Nerlens Noel ran into foul trouble. “We’re trying to grow Jahlil to guard ‘fours,’ to try to find Dirk, and keep Nerlens at the rim, and that is still a challenge when you play against a team that is so well-coached,” said Brown in reference to Dallas. “They pick you apart, and we chased the whole night. They have high I.Q. players. We got in scramble mode and chasing a lot trying to find some team when Nerlens is on the bench to maybe make a difference.”When the Sixers take the court Tuesday, they’ll be hosting an Orlando Magic team against which they had a sound defensive showing last month. At Amway Center on January 20th, the Sixers contained Orlando for 87 points, the second-lowest total the Sixers have yielded this campaign. That night, the Magic hit only 39.3 percent of their field goal attempts, and went four for 17 from three-point territory.
Brett Brown indicated before Sunday’s contest at American Airlines Center that he doubted that he was “going to abandon” T.J. McConnell. To give context to that remark, in the Sixers’ previous outing on Friday at Smoothie King Center, McConnell was tasked with matching up against a Pelicans backcourt highlighted by former Sixer All-Star point guard Jrue Holiday. Brown recognized the spot was a tricky one for his undrafted rookie. Subsequently, McConnell logged seven minutes that night, which was a season-low. Two days later, though, McConnell was right back in the rotation, and, as has been the case for most of the season, proved productive. He tallied six points (3-4) and a team-best six assists, while not committing a turnover. Here’s a look at some of McConnell’s work from Sunday. “T.J. had sort of claimed that back-up roll for a while, and had delivered, and has been great,” said Brown, affirming his belief in McConnell during Sunday’s pre-game media session. “He just got struck early by their athletic guards in New Orleans.”
