2020 NBA playoffs: Specific ways Tobias Harris, Al Horford and Josh Richardson can help make up for loss of Ben Simmons
Outside of Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons, every Sixer seems to be a somewhat peripheral figure.
With Simmons out because of a left knee injury, the attention has shifted even further in the direction of Embiid, who the Sixers will rely on in their upcoming first-round series vs. the Celtics.
“We clearly need a healthy Joel Embiid,” Brett Brown said Friday night. “Nobody denies that, we can’t dismiss that. You need a healthy Joel Embiid to make the run that we need to make.”
Players who had been assuming complementary roles, however, will now be asked to contribute more and execute at a higher level for the Sixers to upset the Celtics. How specifically can they do that? Let’s take a look.
Tobias Harris
Harris was very good in the seeding games. He sat out Tuesday vs. the Suns with right ankle soreness that the Sixers clearly considered minor, and averaged 21.7 points, 7.9 rebounds and 3.1 assists in the seven games he did play, shooting 41.2 percent from three-point range.
A weakness for Harris that we noted back in June when we looked at the question of whether he can be a bona fide playoff scorer is he doesn’t get to the foul line often. He has a .184 free throw rate this season, which is quite low for a player who scores about 20 points per game.
After attempting eight foul shots Wednesday vs. the Raptors, his third-highest total for a game this year, Harris was asked about the issue and framed it as an important one.
That’s a huge point for me,” he said. “A point of emphasis to be able to be more efficient and more effective is getting to the free throw line. So I’m not going to give away all my tactics, but I’m, on a day-to-day basis, watching film, evaluating and watching other games and seeing what’s being called and ways to go the free throw line. I am a guy who heavily focuses on making shots. Sometimes, that’s to a fault.
“I do have to do a better job of selling the contact and whatnot, being a bigger guy and a stronger guy. So, it’s just a continued progression, but it’s definitely something that is an emphasis for me, and for our team in the playoffs.
He doesn’t have the intuition many players do to slyly lean into contact or convincingly throw his head back when he’s touched, but it’s positive that Harris is at least aware he needs to take more free throws and is thinking about ways he can achieve that goal. Expecting massive improvement in the playoffs would probably not be realistic, but perhaps we’ll see some progress.
If he follows the season-long instructions of his head coach, he’ll also be “hunting threes,” looking to exploit mismatches and playing with a pervasive aggression. So far, so good on those fronts in the seeding games.
He said on Aug. 3 that the hiatus was helpful for him mentally.
“Through the pandemic, being able to be home and not being able to be in the gym, there were moments and opportunities for me to really work on my mental game and get myself in a place where I know what to expect,” he said. “Now I’m just fueling off that confidence every day, continuing to tell myself who I want to be, what I want to be and how I want our team to go. It’s just a confidence thing, and I’m having fun playing this game that I love.”
Al Horford
The many-million-dollar question is if the Horford-Embiid pairing can work in the playoffs. Since Simmons’ injury, the Sixers have a minus-6.9 net rating in 44 Horford-Embiid minutes. That’s a very small sample size, of course, and some of those minutes have been in meaningless games. Overall, the team has a minus-0.5 net rating with its opening night starting frontcourt on the floor.
Elton Brand’s unconventional offseason hinged on the performance of that duo, and it’s been poor. Is there any reason to think Horford and Embiid can be better together in the playoffs?
Well, really that’s Coach has to figure things out in that way,” Horford said on July 21. “Now that the games mean more at this point, especially the playoffs coming in, the focus really shifts to defense and we have to make sure that we’re great defensively. The offense, it will come. We will figure that out. But defensively, we just have to make sure that we’re great, and I believe that we will be.
As an individual, Horford did well in the seeding games, averaging 10.9 points, 6.3 rebounds and 3.7 assists, and he shot 52.6 percent from three. He’ll be required to guard smaller, more agile players – it wouldn’t be surprising if he drew the initial assignment on Jayson Tatum – and Brown is enthused about his versatility.
“He’s just so multi-purposed,” Brown said Wednesday. “When you lose somebody like Ben Simmons, you’re looking around at where are you going to make stuff up as it relates especially to the defensive side of it. Some of it you can ask him to do. He’s obviously a different(ly) designed athlete than Ben is, but his intellect and his lateral quickness and his toughness, those can all compensate for a lot.
“We all have seen firsthand the Celtics defensive success he had on a few of our players. And so you look forward to flipping the uniform and bringing it more our way … especially without Ben Simmons.”
Josh Richardson
The main defenders on All-Star Kemba Walker should be Richardson and Matisse Thybulle.
Richardson did well against Walker, holding him to 10 points on 4 for 11 shooting when they went head to head. He has the tools – lateral agility, slipperiness around screens, size and length – to challenge Walker, who has been working through a left knee issue. Walker is still not an easy cover for any team, including the Sixers. NBC Sports Boston’s Chris Forsberg previewed the matchup well.
Something interesting to consider is whether the Sixers will blitz Walker or a hot Celtics guard. Back in September at Brown’s “Coach the Coaches” clinic, assistant coach Ime Udoka’s deadpan response to a question about the right time to blitz was that Walker scored 60 points against the Sixers last season, which led Brown to walk over and give Udoka a hearty, smiley hug. The team’s base pick-and-roll coverage will still presumably be having the big man drop and the guard try to go over the screen, but maybe we’ll see greater variation – switching, blitzing, hedging – if that’s not effective.
Offensively, we’ve seen Richardson have fourth-quarter scoring spurts where he takes charge of the game. The hope will be that he can find greater consistency and stay involved during stints when he’s not the focal point of the offense.
And, as we noted with Harris, taking open three-pointers will be key for Richardson, in part to make the Celtics pay for hard double teams on Embiid. Richardson took five threes per game in the seeding games and made 42.9 percent, statistics the Sixers would love to carry over to the playoffs.
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