When the Sixers broke training camp, head coach Brett Brown was excited about the idea that he had actual shooters on his roster.
After finishing the previous two seasons as the “worst shooting team in the history of the sport,” as Brown claimed, the Sixers looked as if they had improved. Hollis Thompson and Robert Covington were coming back for the season, joined by Isaiah Canaan for an entire year. With the addition of Nik Stauskas, Brown had visions of three-pointers going in for a change.
Shooting was going to be a big difference for the Sixers, Brown said.
“I think it’s maybe the most important part of offense,” Brown said after Friday’s practice at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. “You might have a lot of people scratch their heads when they hear me say that, but if you’re going to play late into the season, you gotta have your perimeter players make shots, [especially] threes. Sometimes I think that’s more important than guarding when you talk about the playoffs. You have to score. You have to have scorers because it’s so hard to score when the season gets late.”
Only that’s not how it happened.
Instead, the Sixers shot worse from long range than they did two seasons ago, connecting on just 31.7 percent of their shots in the first 23 games. During one two-game stretch, the Sixers went 8 for 55 (14.5 percent), including a combined 3 for 41 from Thompson, Covington, Canaan and Stauskas during that stretch, punctuated by a combined 0 for 22 in the Dec. 10 loss in Brooklyn.
Brown had his shooters, but not his shot-makers.
NBA
But as with so much this season, things changed when Ish Smith joined the Sixers (see story). Suddenly, the Sixers’ shooters were turning into shot-makers, going from 32 percent from three-point range before Smith’s arrival to 36 percent in the 13 games with Smith. Over the last six games, the Sixers have shot 44 percent from three, including 9 for 19 in Wednesday’s victory in Orlando.
Shooting won the game in Orlando and nearly won it in the double-overtime loss in New York last Monday as well as the overtime loss to the Bulls last week.
“It’s been huge,” Smith said about the Sixers’ improved shooting. “We’ve been knocking them down and I think it won the Orlando game for us. We hit a lot of threes down the stretch. We were down in the first quarter and it brought us back in the game.”
That same group of four that went 3 for 41 in two games in December is 17 for 34 during the last two games. Finding shots for those shooters has been Smith’s top objective during the last bunch of games.
“Isaiah has been rolling for the last three or four games, so when he comes in the game, I look for him,” Smith said. “Hollis has been shooting it well and Covington is shooting it well. Those guys are our shooters, so I look for them and try to get those guys going.”
By getting shots for the perimeter players, the rest of the offense runs much smoother, Brown says. With improved three-point shooting, big men Jahlil Okafor and Nerlens Noel have blossomed offensively. Okafor is shooting 60 percent from the field over his last 10 games and 62 percent with nearly 22 points per game over the last three.
Noel is shooting 64 percent in the 13 games with Smith after hitting just 45 percent of his first 25 games this season.
“For us, the attention that Jahlil gets and the crowd Ish is seeing and his ability to get to the rim, shooting is a big part of success," Brown said. "It has helped us lately."
The trickle-down effect from the outside on in will only get better if the shots continue to fall from long range.
“It opens up everything as far as drives, Nerlens’ lobs and it’s my job to get guys open for shots and open threes,” Smith said. “Nerlens and Jah, it’s pretty simple to get those guys going. You just throw the ball down to Jah on the block and Nerlens can come off the pick-and-roll for a lob, so getting those guys going is simple.”
If the Sixers can get it going over the next stretch of games, they could be onto something. Though Sunday’s opponent, Boston, has the third-best defense against three-pointers in the NBA, Tuesday’s opponent, Phoenix, is the worst in the NBA.
“Getting our shooters going is huge,” Smith said.