Philadelphia 76ers: Perimeter defense must improve to succeed in Orlando

Splitting the first two seeding games, the Philadelphia 76ers must improve their perimeter defense if they wish to succeed in the bubble.

With the first two games of the NBA restart, the Philadelphia 76ers are 1-1 in the bubble. Matched up against the Indiana Pacers who were missing Domantas Sabonis and Malcolm Brogdon, and the San Antonio Spurs who were without LaMarcus Aldridge as well as other key rotation players, many expected the Sixers to be 2-0 at this point.

One of the main factors for the Sixers continuance of underachieving is their perimeter defense. Through the first two games, opponents have made a whopping 43.3 percent of their shots from their point range.

After a disheartening 127-121 loss to the Pacers, Brett Brown stated, “Someone asked at the start of the game what was most on my mind, we wanna be the best defensive team in the NBA and tonight that was just a sentence it was no indication that this is who we are.”

Facing a Pacers team missing two of their best players in Damontas Sabonis and Malcolm Brogdon, the 76ers played pretty well on defense except for a red-hot TJ Warren dropping a career-high 53 points.

The Pacers shot 14-of-34 from downtown against the 76ers, nine of which were netted by TJ Warren. Throughout the entirety of the game, the Sixers were constantly giving too much space out on the perimeter and allowing the Pacers to get open look threes and long twos.

Following the game, Joel Embiid made it very clear how he felt about the team played defense:

"“We just gotta do a better job as a team, it’s not just on one guy. We have to help each other. We have to stop them…We have to do a better job of adjusting…We scored the ball enough. I think the whole problem is defensively”."

Going up against another short-handed team two nights later, the Sixers again found themselves in trouble late in the game, mostly due to their perimeter defense, or lack thereof. The Spurs shot a lethal 46.2 percent from three, making 12 of their 26 attempts.

Seven different Spurs players netted a shot from downtown against the Philadelphia 76ers, and Derrick White knocked down four of them. Dejounte Murray was the only opposing player to attempt and not make a three.

White made three of his four triples in the fourth to help the Spurs take a lead they would quickly relinquish. The 76ers defeated the Spurs 132-130 thanks to a Shake Milton game-winning three despite having a 12-point lead heading into the final quarter.

By the way, shout out to Shake for the first game-winning shot of his young career.

Even with the win, Embiid was not shy about criticizing the defense:

"“We aim to be the best defensive team in the league, so we just got to take the challenge…throughout the whole, the last two games we haven’t been able to keep our man in front of us”."

When the NBA decided to press pause on the season due to the ongoing pandemic, the Sixers were allowing just 107.4 points per game while holding opponents to 46.2 percent from the field and only 35.4 percent from 3-point range.

In the first two games of the NBA restart, those numbers have skyrocketed to 128.5 points per game, 50 percent from the field, and a staggering 43.3 percent from downtown. The only other team that has clinched a playoff spot to allow at least 40 percent from three-point land in the bubble is the injury-plagued Denver Nuggets.

To have a chance in the playoffs against teams like the Boston Celtics, Milwaukee Bucks, and Toronto Raptors, the Philadelphia 76ers are going to have to improve the way they defend the three drastically.

To quote the great and wise Joel Embiid, “We can’t settle, we all have to keep on getting better because the way we been playing, that’s not going to cut it.”