Simmons’ shooting timidity a model for ‘scared’ Sixers
PHILADELPHIA >> Stumped by a zone defense, tentative on offense, disconnected on defense, tense and seemingly tired, the 76ers had just lost a second consecutive game Friday. With that, it was up to Joel Embiid to point out what everyone in the sport was thinking.
“I feel like, especially tonight, we were playing scared,” said Embiid. “Basketball is easy. Just shoot it. Pass it. Move it. If you don’t have a shot, just pass it. But tonight, we didn’t make shots. And defensively we were bad.”
Much of that was typical basketball babble. But one word stood out. So did one sentence. And while only Embiid knows why he elected to unload that outburst, it didn’t take forensic basketball science to generate some theories.
Scared?
OK.
Who typically has been terrified to perform the most rudimentary of that sport’s tasks? Who? Anybody? Hands?
To the next Embiid declaration: Just shoot it.
OK.
Might there be a particular 76er who has been reluctant to shoot, and whose fear of the three-point shot has become an international basketball story?
Does anybody come to mind? One should.
That would be the one whose demand to run an offense was so overwhelming that, for his comfort and for his ego, it prompted the Sixers to restructure a very good roster heading into this season. That would be the one whose coach openly pleaded with him to attempt one three-point shot per game and who, in the ensuing seven games, attempted a total of one. And that was a beatthe-buzzer desperation heave, not an in-context attempt to solve a defense.
The Sixers have a good team and could be a great team, one that was 20-10 heading into a game Saturday night against Washington, 14-2 at the Wells Fargo Center. At some point around the trade deadline, they are going to become a better team when Elton Brand fits them with one shooter, maybe more, for the pennant race and the postseason.
But there was something about the word Embiid used Friday that had to resonate. Scared?
Brown heard that criticism Friday just after leaving the press room microphone free for Embiid. In the 100-game drain that is the NBA, preseason and postseason included, things are said, sometimes even by accident. Still, that one would hang out there for a while, or at least until the Sixers showed they could play some other way.
“I have heard it and I will comment on it, and I would be guessing because I haven’t spoken with him on it,” Brown said. “Whether that’s the word or my word or words, we can’t let some of these things affect our spirit. That’s where I am going. His word of playing afraid, he can better answer. But just trying to overcome this funky phase of trying to overcome some zone problems is on all of our minds.
“I don’t see the world like that. I see the world as I just said it. I think it’s crept into our spirit. And I personally will stick with that.”
The Sixers are too good and the NBA is too filthy with disinterested teams for that spirit to be scarred. But in losing back-toback games against teams heavy with zone defenses is not to be dismissed. While not the exact template for how to beat the Sixers in a playoff series, it is close, and for one reason: The Sixers have a point guard reluctant to shoot. In a 19-point loss to Dallas Friday, Ben Simmons took 10 shots, all twopoint attempts, making four. The previous game, Simmons shot 7-for-13, attempting nothing from distance, and the Sixers lost to Jimmy Butler and the Heat by four.
That would be the same Butler who openly demanded that Simmons be more aggressive during the playoffs last season, both with his gyrations on the floor and in his clear postgame comments. And it would be the same Butler who, oddly enough, was not brought back on a free agent contract.
Simmons is an excellent player, on an AllStar
arc again this season, dynamic in the open floor, a handful on defense. But he is at his best when the sport opens up, when he is free to frolic on a fast-paced game and to wiggle to the basket to entertain the fans with a dunk. That’s not how it is going to be in the playoffs, where teams won’t necessarily be made to play zone, but can defend with some zone principles. And in the last week, it has grown plain that it is an option to beat the Sixers in the regular season.
By Saturday night, Brown, weary of Simmons’ shooting deficiencies as a nightly topic, began a campaign to re-brand Simmons as — wait for it — an offensive rebounder.
“I don’t see the zone issues, kind of strangely, being pointed toward Ben as much,” Brown said. “Where I think Ben can have his greatest impact hurting a zone is being a live-footed, relentless, committed offensive rebounder.”
Of course. In fact, if All-Star Weekend featured a live-footed, relentless, committed-offensive-rebounding competition, Ben Simmons could generate record TV ratings. Trouble is, it doesn’t. Trouble is, the Sixers effectively dismissed Butler, locker-room pest that he can be, in order to free the position for Simmons. Trouble is, Brown asked Simmons only to attempt one three-pointer a game, was ignored, and has begun to edit the script.
“We’ve just got to get back to playing with that swagger,” Mike Scott said, “to find that edge again.”
That won’t happen until all of them stop playing the way their most important player accused them of playing.
To contact Jack McCaffery, email him at jmccaffery@21st-centurymedia.com; follow him on Twitter @JackMcCaffery.