Hill would be an upgrade to the postseason lineup

PHILADELPHIA » For the 32nd and most likely final regular-season time Friday night, Doc Rivers started his 2020-2021 76ers fantasy team.

There was Joel Embiid at center, Tobias Harris and Danny Green on the perimeter, Ben Simmons and Seth Curry in the backcourt for a game against Orlando. It was set up that way in the offseason. With some predictable glitches, it survived the 72-game speed-season. For the most part, it had been successful. But it was far less than perfect during a 12-point loss a night earlier in Miami, when it could not prevent the Heat from scoring 38 points in the first quarter.

“I just don’t think we were ready,” Rivers said, “to play the game.”

Hardly in a panic situation in Miami, the Sixers knew they still had a two-game series with the 29-41 Magic, and that they needed only to win once to secure the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs. And Embiid, who had been out with an unspecified illness a game earlier in Indiana, was not himself, providing just six points in 26 minutes. Also, the Heat was motivated to send a calling card, as the hockey players call it, to the team it well could face for a right to reach the Eastern Conference finals.

Yet there was one more reason why a Sixers losing streak hit two. It was because for the second time in the month, they were stumped by a zone defense. They were able to survive that earlier in a tighter-than-itshould-have-been home victory over Detroit. They didn’t against Miami. Why? “It’s a concern if we have to take the ball out every time and have to play a halfcourt defense every time down the floor,” Rivers said. “That would be a concern to me.”

It’s a reasonable analysis. When a team scores, and a good team will score, it can more smoothly retreat to a zone defense.

“It’s easier for them to set up their zone every time,” Tobias Harris, “because they were scoring.”

In the playoffs, the Sixers will only face teams capable of scoring. And while the better teams will not quickly abandon their own reliable defenses just to torment, say, a point guard unwilling to shoot from distance, it would be a possibility at some point in a long series.

Though there were only two regular-season games left Friday evening, there was still the possibility of the Sixers playing 28 times in the postseason. So the season was far from over. And with a quick bye week upcoming as the NBA goes through its new mini-play-in round, there is plenty of time and responsibility for the Sixers to improve.

One way: Replace 6-2 below-average NBA defender Seth Curry in the starting lineup with 6-4 George Hill, an above-average defensive presence.

“Yeah,” Rivers said before the game Friday, dismissing the idea. “Look at our starting lineup’s record. I would caution you to look at it.”

Entering the game, the Sixers were 26-5 with their preferred starting unit, including some signature wins, including some of the walk-over kind too.

“Pretty good,” Rivers said. “So I think we are pretty good with it.”

The Sixers were talented enough to have camouflaged Curry’s defense in a regular season vandalized by coaches and sports scientists too seldom employing all of their best players. But Curry could be exposed against matchup-hunting coaches in the playoffs, not unlike J.J. Redick once was exposed at the defensive end.

It’s not that his team is so sideways that Rivers must take a power-washer to the clubhouse whiteboard. The question isn’t whether he has a pretty good starting lineup; it’s whether he has his best starting lineup. 76ers guard George Hill, left, and center Dwight Howard, right, put the squeeze on Miami Heat guard Tyler Herro Thursday night. Hill’s defensive skills would be a boost to the starting lineup.

In Hill, the Sixers have a veteran who had started 465 of his 813 NBA games. Curry has started 135 of 313, and that was fluffed this season, when he has started all 58 games he’s played. Hill is the kind of player who would be more comfortable with better players, with his understated variety of skills more likely to help for 30 minutes a night in the playoffs than in a few choppy shifts with the backups. As for Curry, he can provide some offense from the bench while nicely complementing Shake Milton.

The playoffs are all about moves and counter-moves. With a few more stumbles like the one in Miami, Rivers could be nudged into some changes. Just don’t count on it. “If we play like we did (in Miami), it would be a concern,” Rivers said. “But I really don’t think we’ll play that way.”

If they don’t play that way, the Sixers can be champions.

If they do, they can’t be too committed to a fantasy lineup to adjust.