Turnovers a business cost that has been worth paying
The 76ers won 52 times in the regular season and three more times in the playoffs, not once with a dramatic secret.
They do what they do. They demand that the player with the ball make a decision to shoot, pass or drive within half a second. Their coach rewards playing time to players with a good shot to defer to a player with a better shot. They start their offense, particularly when Ben Simmons is at the point, 60 feet from the basket, not 15. They take long shots and accept long rebounds, aware that their games are bound to unfold at a high pace.
So, what? All of a sudden Brett Brown is supposed to apologize for that? For who? For what? But that’s where Brown found himself Monday at the training complex, basically confronting the same question he has heard for too long. What can he do about those turnovers, and in
particular the 27 the Sixers committed in a 106-102 victory Saturday in Miami? Key word: Victory.
“You can walk it up the floor,” the Sixers’ coach began, with a twinge of sarcasm. “And you can have your two best players play sort of slow and play conservative.” And? “We’re not doing it. We’re not going to do it.”
Through the process to what has become NBA excellence, the Sixers lost games for plenty of reasons, including too many inept players and overvalued sports scientists. But it was easier to blame the failure on turnovers, which, in another decade, could explain any basketball disappointment.
The Sixers made a league-high 1,353 turnovers this season, not that it prevented them from winning a three-seed in the Eastern Conference tournament. Same offense. Same coach. Same idea. Same turnovers. And better players.
The Sixers play a certain style. Turnovers are a business cost of that style. Business costs are not pleasant. But they should lead to a favorable bottom line.
That’s how the Warriors, the sitting champions, do it, and they had 1,276 turnovers, fifth most in the NBA. Then again, the Sixers can aspire to be like the team that committed the fewest turnovers, 1,008. That would be Dallas. The Mavericks were 24-58.
“So that I am not Coach Curmudgeon,” Brown said, of the 27-turnover game, “the fact is that since 1986, no team in three decades plus two years won a playoff game having that volume of turnovers. That’s a little bit risky. Had we not done a good job of offensive rebounding, that ledger wouldn’t have been balanced. And you don’t know what I know on defensive breakdowns and mistakes. And you don’t know what I know about offensive breakdowns and mistakes and shot selection.”
Plenty of that was unsightly. Yet the Sixers remained in character and moved within one victory of the second round.
“Then all of a sudden, we bunker in and we show a side that I am just incredibly fond of and respect, that fourth-period mentality,” Brown said. “You can’t make that up and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. There is a spirit in our group and there is a toughness in our group. So you look at both sides of it. We’re extremely fortunate. You can’t repeat that. It’s always good to get out of an ugly game with a win. There are way more positives in all of this, especially since we won, than anything. And I look forward to fixing some of the things that we saw in the first three periods.”
Brown has been discussing the turnover issue for months, and he has acknowledged that it can be troubling. He cringes when players step out of bounds, or when they are caught in a three-second violation, or when they casually toss a pass into traffic. There is no value to turning the ball over. It’s better to not turn the ball over. One of Brown’s go-to phrases is “the holy grail,” and playing at the Sixers’ preferred pace while not making turnovers would be a treasure worth seeking. Improvement is not taboo.
“You’d be doing your opponent a disservice if you didn’t acknowledge how difficult it is to win a playoff game,” J.J. Redick said. “So we can always take positives from a playoff win, especially against a team that is together and playing hard. But we realize that having that many turnovers in a playoff game is a recipe for disaster. We have to be a lot better there.”
They have to be better to win a championship. But they have to be better without sacrificing what already made them good.
“In general, trying to move people around, particularly during the playoffs, interests me,” Brown said. “Anything that is static does not. Our team is most capable in a movement type of game. And I just feel that the style that we have chosen to play offensively is a style that we have to play in the playoffs.
“You’re not going to pivot out of it and all of a sudden become a static, slow team.”
That would just be taking something valuable and throwing it away.