Sixers

Would Ben Simmons Making 3s Help With Any of the Sixers' Spacing Issues?

"I was just glad that he took a shot, got it to go down and now we can kind of move forward"

Ben Simmons' first made three-pointer in a regular-season NBA game Wednesday night did not suddenly solve the Sixers' spacing concerns. In fact, the Sixers didn't score for the opening 5:34 of the third quarter in their win over the Knicks, and Brett Brown and Al Horford were both frank Thursday about the state of the Sixers' offense.

"I'm prepared to be patient and try to fix spatial things, more than anything," Brown said. "It's not like a magic bean - here it is, here's the play - it ain't that. Space in pick-and-rolls, space in post, space in early offense - space."

Horford described the issues as stemming from a team-wide desire to play aggressively.

"I just think that we have the mentality that we want to attack, we want to get in the paint, we all want to get in there and score," he said. "Whether I have a mismatch or Ben has a mismatch, and we're all in there. It's just recognizing in the middle of the game if you see someone else, then you kind of find your place and re-space. I think it's all good intentions. That's why I keep saying, the more games we play, I feel the better that things will get."

The play below illustrates Horford's point.

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The sequence starts with Embiid rolling to the rim, then setting a down screen for Horford. When the high-low between Horford and Embiid isn't available, Horford comes out to the left wing and hands it off to Tobias Harris, who attempts to drive to the rim. Julius Randle, though, leaves Horford to help, and Taj Gibson muddies the paint as well.

Gibson sneaks into the lane because he's guarding Simmons, who sets a weak side flare screen for Shake Milton inside the arc on the right wing instead of planting himself in the corner. 

The idea of Simmons freeing up a teammate on occasion by catching an opponent with a surprise screen is fair enough, but that's not where Brown typically prefers him to be placed.

Brown wants Simmons to either be in a corner or in the "dunker spot," hovering in the region near the low block and behind the backboard. When Simmons is in the dunker spot, that tends to relegate his teammates to the perimeter.

On the play above, Simmons starts in the left corner while Harris and Embiid run a middle pick-and-roll, but he leaks down into the dunker spot. Once he's rolled, Embiid discovers the dunker spot is already occupied, meaning he needs to retreat to the corner. An unsightly possession ends with a fadeaway three-point attempt by Embiid at the end of the shot clock. 

Simmons situating himself in the corner more regularly could, in theory, leave that space open for Embiid and create more room for the offense.

"For the obvious space reasons, it helps," Brown said of how Simmons taking and making threes might benefit the Sixers. "To have him grow to a different floor spot - we've talked lots about getting him out of the dunker into a corner. His current world is you will either be in two places - an extreme corner or playing peekaboo behind the backboard in a dunker, because he's still very good at that. And I think that he's growing those two areas. 

"He understands when he's not on the ball, this is my home, this is my world, along those areas. … I think he's been fantastic at embracing that and I believe that if he can continue to work in that world, that side of it will certainly help us as time unfolds."

How many threes would Simmons need to hit - and at what rate - in order to merit consistent respect from opposing defenses? 

Even now, defenders will often stay in his vicinity when he's behind the arc. The play below goes wrong because of Furkan Korkmaz's drive into trouble, but notice that RJ Barrett guards Simmons close to the way one would play an average outside shooter. He doesn't entirely abandon a player who's yet to make a single NBA three from where he's standing on the left wing.

The court is generally more congested and the distance required to send a double team is shorter when Simmons is in the dunker spot. 

With Simmons deciding to go to the dunker spot on the play above, Randle didn't have far to travel to wrestle the ball away from Horford. If Simmons had been in the corner and if he'd established himself as something beyond a novice as a three-point shooter, would Horford have had more time and space to post up? Perhaps.

"I think it will open things up even more," Horford said of Simmons adding a three-point shot. "It will make us more dangerous because teams won't be able to help as much and clog the lane and things like that. I was just happy to see Ben - he's been doing it every day in practice. And in different situations I've seen him, he's shooting it comfortably. I was just glad that he took a shot, got it to go down and now we can kind of move forward."

For the time being, the Sixers' offense looks most fluid and makes most sense in transition, where one player's instinct to score in the paint tends not to butt heads with another's insistence on posting up a smaller defender.

There was nothing complicated about the Sixers' first points of the second half Thursday. Simmons threw the ball ahead to James Ennis, who dropped it off to Horford in an area where he could attack Randle.

Half-court spacing is currently less comfortable. Simmons' outside shot - were it to become a regular threat - and him permanently shifting to the corners might change things. At the moment, the notion that both those things will happen seems highly hopeful.

We can predict with more confidence, however, that more minutes for this group of players together will help. Time won't magically make a supersized lineup work offensively, but it should allow teammates to grow a better understanding of each other. 

"As a coach, the first thing I go to is space," Brown said. "How do you help with space? And then at that point on, you create a gym that can breathe, and their skillsets should be able to shine. And then from that point on, it's on them."

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