Challenges will grow in second half of season
WASHINGTON >> Brett Brown didn’t win 27 games in his first season of NBA head coaching, didn’t win that many in his second, didn’t win that many in his third, and might not have known whether there would be a fourth or fifth. All he understood was that NBA victories are not easy. All he knew as he waited Wednesday night to begin the second half of his sixth season was that his Sixers already had 27 wins, were in a pace to win 54, and that it was better that way than the other.
“The fact that we’re winning,” Brown would say before a game against the Wizards, about what most pleased him through the season’s first half. “The fact that despite some ups and downs, trying to figure out the design of the team, that we’re winning. The fact that we have firepower that we haven’t had before.”
Good times. Maybe not great. But given everything, a 27-14 record halfway through a first half ripe for dysfunction was a coaching achievement.
Literally from Day 1 of training camp, when Ben Simmons proclaimed that he’d emerged from the offseason no better equipped to make threepoint shots and not in a mood to try, Brown has been challenged.
That was him being made to provide the cushion for an experiment gone way, way wrong and to make Markelle Fultz a starter. He knew, even if he never said it, that the initiative had no chance to succeed. But because the franchise overpaid to trade up for Fultz’s draft rights, at some point the head coach was going to be made to give him a reasonable chance to be a star. Brown did that, starting Fultz for 15 games, six of them losses, watching the young guard consistently make poor decisions while the professionally peaking J.J. Redick was trapped on the bench.
That was Brown later being fortunate enough to have his general manager acquire Jimmy Butler, a budding Hall of Fame candidate as a player, already in the Hall of Fame of coach-challengers. And that was him who would lose two starters, and two of his truly favorite players in Dario Saric and Robert Covington, and to continue a vigil for Elton Brand to fit him with another championship-level NBA starter.
That was him reportedly criticized by Butler in a loud film session. That was him trying to console Joel Embiid, who demanded more touches. That was him playing without his top draft choice, Zhaire Smith, out all season with a foot injury, yet again.
And that was him, at the midway point, excited about what should be next.
“Defense is going to be the dot-connector,” Brown said. “As we sort of grow that mentality and that understanding, that’s the method that teams can come together, with passing as a really close cousin. I see signs of that. So there is an excitement. We have the best home record in the league. We still have to get back on track when we play some of the heavyweights in the NBA. We understand that. But there are tremendous signs all over the place that kind of get you excited to really attack this second half of the season.”
The halves of an NBA season neither are, nor are designed to be, mirror images. Rosters will change. Brand will add another veteran. Eventually, the truly weak in pro basketball will tend to crumble or tank, which is largely how the Sixers were able to win their final 16 last year. The schedule will not be exactly the same. And for the Sixers, it could grow more challenging in a hurry.
“Not ‘could’,” T.J. McConnell said. “It’s going to. We’ve got a little stretch before then that we could rally off some wins. But we’re taking it one day at a time and not overlooking anyone.”
The Sixers are 0-2 against Boston, 1-2 against Toronto and 1-0 against Milwaukee. They are 2-0 against the Clippers, but have yet to face the rest of the Western Conference cream — Golden State, Oklahoma City, Denver or Houston. But consider this scheduling handful, which starts Jan. 17: At Indiana, home against OKC, Houston and the Spurs, then at Denver, at the Lakers and at Golden State. And after a game in Sacramento, they will have a four-game homestand against Toronto, Denver, the Lakers and the Nuggets. That’s not a schedule; that’s a burden of proof.
“We’ve talked about it,” Brown said. “We have a chance to get wins under our belt, to get a respectful cockiness, a mojo, a swagger, a belief that we can take then into royalty, elite in the league. All those games are national TV games and it’s the elite of the NBA.”
With 27 wins in 41 games, the Sixers have earned some room for error. But if they can handle the rest of January as they did the first half of the season, they are likely to stampede into the playoffs with a seed favorable enough for Brown to realize his stated preseason goal of playing in the NBA Finals.
The Sixers are about to learn more about themselves. But they’ve already learned plenty.
“There have been multiple things,” Simmons said. “I think, individually for me, it’s how good of a defensive player I can be. Team-wise, it’s how good we can be together as a team. Prior to the trade and after the trade, I still believe in the guys we have and I think we have the guys to do it.”
Half a season down, the numbers agree.
To contact Jack McCaffery, email him at jmccaffery@21stcenturymedia.com; follow him on Twitter @JackMcCaffery.