Philadelphia 76ers: London game highlights some glaring flaws

Their recent loss to the Boston Celtics in London continued a trend for the Philadelphia 76ers as we approach the midway point of the season.

Approaching the midway point of the season, the Philadelphia 76ers find themselves in ninth place in the Eastern Conference with a 19-20 record. Being on the verge of the playoff race naturally brings much joy and excitement to their fanbase, and is a far cry from the previous four seasons in which they compiled a 75-253 record.

But despite their improvement and ascension in the standings this season, there are still some issues that need to be addressed and amended as the season progresses.

One aspect their recent clash against the Boston Celtics in London brought to the forefront was the Sixers’ lack of success against elite opposition. Through 39 games, the Sixers are 10-15 against teams with a record above .500, while they are 9-5 against teams sub-.500.

With so many changes to the roster this offseason, it wasn’t unforeseeable that there would be an adjustment period required for the team to jell and excel on the court. But with 39 games under their belts, the time for on-court production and consistency has arrived.

Furthermore, the Sixers are just 3-8 this season against teams with a .600 record or greater, which includes being just 1-5 against their Eastern Conference rivals.

Here’s a breakdown of how they fared over these 11 games against some of the best competition in the league:

• Offensive Rating (points per 100 possessions): 100.8
• Defensive Rating (points allowed per 100 possessions): 108.7

Notably, the Sixers were a -92 over the course of these 11 games, allowing an average of 111.6 points per game. Importantly, center Joel Embiid competed in nine of these 11 games, meaning the team was close to full strength for the majority of these contests.

Turnovers

The second and just as damaging aspect that the London game highlighted was there Sixers’ continued problem with committing turnovers. Overall, Philly ranks dead last in turnovers, averaging 17.9 per game. Unsurprisingly, this had led to the Sixers giving up the second-most amount of points per game off turnovers, squandering 19.4 points per game.

In their recent game against the Celtics, this problem area reared its head again as the Sixers committed 19 turnovers while giving up 25 points in the process. The main culprits in this regard are their marquee players, Embiid and Ben Simmons.

Currently, Embiid is ranked fifth in the league in averaging 4.1 turnovers per game, featuring five games of committing a season-high seven turnovers. However, on a per-36 minute basis, his turnovers have subsided from last season (5.4 to 4.7) despite his touches increasing from 63.4 to 79.5 per game.

In his debut season, Simmons is ranked seventh in turnovers by averaging 3.9 per game. While he has taken the league by storm as a rookie by averaging 16.9 points, 8.2 rebounds, 7.3 assists and 1.9 steals per game, getting this aspect under control is a real priority moving forward, with Simmons already having 12 games of committing five or more turnovers.

Recently, Sixers analyst for NBC Sports Philadelphia, Marc Jackson, commented on the high turnover issue:

"“That’s a legitimate concern with the amount of turnovers the 76ers have had but let’s be honest, we kind of expected it with Ben Simmons being given the ball and being the lead ball handler for the team, a young rookie [point guard] you expect those kind of turnovers.  But also got to be mindful of each turnover is two to three points that you don’t have on the board so always got to be cognizant of the importance of lowering the turnover number – If you can try to keep that number under ten, that’s ideal; so [the Sixers should] always push for less turnovers because less turnovers can mean more points and the game can be won or lost on one play.”"

Also recently, head coach Brett Brown addressed the situation:

"“We’ve got to clean up on it….Some of that is easy to blame — we play fast … some of our guys are young. Most of them aren’t anymore. I think when we really critically assess the turnovers, let’s dig deep and understand who, why and when and the world becomes a little bit cleaner.“It is something we can talk about, but at the end of the day, we’ve got to fix it. I’m the head coach. It is on me, and it keeps us up late at night.”"

Possibly the largest contributing factors, aside from the relative inexperience of Embiid and Simmons, are the fact the Sixers rank first in the league in passes at 355.2 per game, and second in the league for Pace at 103.07. Given their propensity to push the ball and take risks, accumulating a high turnover rate is often going to be a side effect of employing such a frantic style of play.

Next: 2017-18 Week 13 NBA Power Rankings

So as they attempt to make their first postseason appearance since 2012, the Sixers will certainly be mindful of addressing a couple of significant problem areas of their overall play.