The Sixers are 11-5, sitting at the top of the Eastern Conference, despite a string of structural changes, interruptions related to COVID in their season and a few notable clunkers in the early weeks of the Doc Rivers era. Their offense is a click, their real-time execution was great and they closed a miniseries against the Boston Celtics on Friday night, going 6-0 in the new series format this season.
Philadelphia flies high and starts with the partnership built between Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons.
“I think over the game, we both see different things,” Simmons told reporters Friday night. “For me and Jo, it’s a relationship that keeps growing. We’re talking a lot more now, in terms of being on the floor and certain things that we say, knowing where the ball wants to be, all the sets and just getting a good flow in the game and trying to read it correctly. “
In the first three quarters of Friday’s game against Boston, it was the Joel Embiid show, even with the center of the franchise struggling with the wrong issues for most of the evening. These Celtics proved to be poorly equipped to protect him – the big guy won 80 points in two games in just 34 tries, brutalizing the front line and going in an individual march to the band, to the disgust of Celtics guard Marcus Smart .
Simmons, as has happened so often this season, has been an offensive passenger for most of the night, focusing his energy on jumping from Kemba Walker to Jaylen Brown to Marcus Smart and putting out fires on the defensive end. It’s hard to call it an ungrateful task, as Simmons continues to get the All-Defense level buzz for his work there, but it’s certainly less glamorous work. have do to do what you do want make.
Then came the fourth quarter, with Philadelphia allowing Boston to return in three after a three-minute Jaylen Brown around five minutes. A personal run by Simmons, punctuated by a steal and a shot on a lazy pass from Smart, pushed the advantage to eight and the game was out of reach, never endangering the rest of the way.
Sixers were an absolute player in the clutch situations, surpassing the teams by 37.5 points per 100 possessions, according to the NBA statistical database, and tEmbiid-Simmons’s defensive column was a sight to behold. They didn’t always shine simultaneously during the middle of the games, but they were downright demonic during the crisis, playing each other to completely stop the pieces and start the Philadelphia races.
Embiid sees everything from his position behind the defense, and his teammate’s game is not lost on the MVP candidate.
“The fourth quarter starts at the defensive end and it was a monster,” Embiid said. “He got a lot of thefts, and then, in the middle of the field, he attacked, he was aggressive and he played. He scored a few baskets, he was huge tonight.”
Recognizing the flow of the game has been one of the many positive developments for Embiid this year. As Simmons began running in the fourth quarter, Doc Rivers told reporters, who was Embiid he asked me to run several pick-and-rolls across the stretch, standing aside in the middle of a 38-point blast to let his hot hand grab the wheel. The head coach thinks this sends a strong message to everyone on the team, and the results speak for themselves, with Simmons scoring 11 lately to put the game aside.
Understanding and feeding the right guy at the right time is traditionally considered a job as a guardian, something Simmons has taken seriously since the beginning of his career. But Rivers’ message from the first day of camp was for the whole team to accept the score by any means necessary, through whoever has the best shot to help them win. This requires self-assessment at all times, before, during and after games, to win or lose.
Embiid and Simmons have had an open line of dialogue this season, which both men seem to appreciate as a positive influence on how they play together.
“He sent me a text message the other day and said, ‘I’ve missed your ducks too many times. I’ll find you.’ Things like that continue to help the team’s chemistry grow.” said Simmons on Friday. “And it just shows that the boys are willing to play. Even if the boys don’t take the right step or are missing something, the boys want to make the right pieces and something like that. So our relationship continues to grow.”
Analyzing their relationship has always been a struggle over the years. It is not at all easy to say that they have never been best friends or that they are not the ideal offensive match next to each other. There are young men with tight circles who are in the process of cutting their professional colors. There have been dramatizations of the dynamic over the years, but it is also true that Embiid did everything he did not ask Simmons to shoot when asked about it during media outlets, aware of the impact it had. has on the whole team. From an organizational point of view, the Sixers were prepared to change Simmons to make a move to pursue more immediate gains around Embiid. These facts will not fade.
It did not stop them from taking full advantage of this situation. Identifying the exact cause is beyond my ability and is probably a combination of dozens of factors, whether you want to accredit the improved list around them, the influence of a new coaching staff or the natural maturation of two young people. But they will tell you themselves that it is not the same old story.
“This year was different. I can’t even explain it this year,” Embiid said. “I like playing with him and I’m sure he loves to play with me too, and it’s just that I don’t even know how to explain it. It was fun. Having someone like that, I can be a player, but I don’t have to be a game player because I have it. And my job is to know, to play defense and to score the ball and to play games when he doubles and triples me, and his job is huge in defense and also He’s playing offensive games for our boys. It’s been amazing this year. “
Do those good vibes last when they inevitably hit a drop in the middle of the season? This is always the true test of a team’s character, no matter how much fun it would look during singalong rap games and mischievous bank holidays late in a victory. They will be tested harder than they were until the end of January, playing teams with all the stars available and the motivation to slow down Embiid’s MVP campaign. This could come immediately next week, with Embiid nemesis Marc Gasol and reigning champion Lakers expected in a head-to-head clash on Wednesday.
For now, the Sixers are in a good place. It’s more than you could say about them for most of last season, and a lot of credit goes to the hands of their two young stars, a strange couple, if they ever existed.
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