Sixers still not good enough to avoid NBA’s ‘danger’ spots
PHILADELPHIA » Stuck for so long just trying not to look inept, the new, competitive Sixers were ready for something different this season. They were ready to act like one of the better teams in the NBA.
They might not have been at that level, not every night, not for eight months, not on back-to-back games or certain road events. But they knew they would not be out of place in a Christmas Day TV marathon, or on an inseason overseas trip, or in a game against the Warriors or Cavaliers or Celtics.
So that’s where they had been in recent weeks, comfortably in that company. They had a lead against Golden State, and they battled the Cavaliers, and they tested themselves against the Celtics. Their record was all the worse for the trouble, having lost all three games. But Brett Brown was OK with learning some things and gaining some experience. And the fans were delighted that their stars were not out of place with any other team’s stars, even if the Sixers still lacked enough stars to be considered championship-ready.
With it all, though, there was a risk. The risk was revealed Monday, in a 115-101 loss to the Phoenix Suns, who entered at 8-16 and were recently made fun of in a viral video exposing their indifference on defense.
The Sixers were that type of team, oh, about 250 days ago. So how did they forget that, so soon?
“We didn’t play our best game,” Ben Simmons said. “We didn’t respect them enough. We didn’t do what we needed to do.”
The Sixers won 28 games last season, 10 the season before that, and way too infrequently for about a dozen years. So it takes a healthy arrogance not to respect anyone, whether that was a throw-away line from Simmons or what really occurred. Yet that’s what happens when the all-clear is sounded, when “Trust the Process” chants are used as declarations of achievement. That’s what happens often in the NBA, when a young team with a special scorer catches a team bigtiming the event.
And that’s what Brown almost sounded like he’d feared, a couple of hours before Devin Booker would go for 46 and the Sixers would settle in at 13-10.
“You can go a bunch of different places,” Brown was saying, before the game. “Where I go is, we’ve got to play defense. We’re going to get shots. Right now, we’re 30th in half-court defense. And this game is an open playground, it’s open gym with the way T.J. Warren and Devin Booker play. It’s a danger game.”
The Sixers had just played some of the best teams in their conference in rapid succession, and Thursday they will entertain the Lakers, an eternal franchise rival. Simmons spent all day Sunday in bed with what Brown called a flu and almost didn’t play Monday. T.J. McConnell, substantially more than just a backup point guard, did not play as he continued to recover from a shoulder injury. Danger, indeed. “They are young and they don’t know what they don’t know,” said Brown of the Suns. “We used to be kind of that. They just roll out a bunch of athletes that play with the fastest pace in the NBA. So it’s not hard when I do my pre-mortem and say, ‘If we’re going to die, what’s it going to look like?’
“It looks like jacking up bad shots, turning the ball over a lot, instigating what they do quite well in open court anyway, not understanding that Devin is going to look to get 50 and that T.J. can get buckets in a bunch of different ways when he wants. You’ve got a water bug in Tyler Ulis. And when they miss, they’ve got athletes coming at it as the seventh-best offensive-rebounding rate in the NBA.
“That’s the deal. That’s the gym.”
Joel Embiid outmuscled Tyson Chandler and bagged 22 points. J.J. Redick offered 25 points. Robert Covington was bothered by the Suns’ length and didn’t provide his usual shooting. And many of the 20,564 fans, who just months ago would have settled for the Sixers being competitive, booed and left early.
“Without a doubt, it was a missed opportunity,” Brown said. “At the end, you are looking at the playoffs, and teams are 42-40 or something like that and it’s close. So there are only so many times you are able to poke yourself in the eye. Tonight was one of those times for us at home.”
The Sixers are too young to look past any team. And they might not have done that Monday. Simmons said he didn’t even know the Suns’ record. But with Brown saying all season that they are capable of reaching the playoffs and expect nothing less, they can’t waste chances.
“They outplayed us,” Redick said. “They competed better than we did. That wasn’t our team tonight.”
That’s what the Sixers believe. That’s what they have to show.