The Sixers have shot the ball poorly to start the season — and they’re letting the misses affect everything else.
One of the biggest reasons for the Sixers’ 3-13 start to this season, other than injured left knees, has been a struggle to shoot the ball consistently.
Given that it’s the most basic premise of the sport, it’s a pretty troubling trend. The Sixers are ranked 28th in total offense, according to Cleaning the Glass, averaging 106.9 points per 100 possessions. The league average this season is 114.
A big reason for that has been a lack of consistent shooters on the floor — despite finding a rookie sensation in Jared McCain who’s been a sharpshooter. McCain has made 40% of his threes on 6.3 attempts over the first 16 games of his NBA career.
Even with that production from a rookie, the Sixers still rank 29th in three-point percentage at 31.5%. This problem at face value already has made this season tough sledding for the Sixers. It’s hard to string wins together being one of the worst offenses in the league night in and night out. Now, they have to worry about how these slumps are seeping into other aspects of the game.
After a 125-99 loss to the LA Clippers that featured one of the poorest defensive efforts the Sixers turned in all season, Nick Nurse spoke to how missed shots have started to influence the team’s defense.
“It’s been affecting us all year that way,” he said.
The trend is extremely human, and it’s something anyone who’s played basketball at even the smallest level has experienced, it’s hard to keep giving effort when you can’t get anything to fall.
“It’s hard,” Nurse said. “When you see that you’re actually doing some good things, and some of your better players are getting those looks and they just continually don’t go in, I think it does affect your defense in a couple ways.”
Nurse also pointed out how just the logistics of missed threes lead to easy fast break opportunities. It’s easier to get out and run off a long rebound.
Transition defense has never been a staple of the Embiid-era Sixers, but it also hasn’t been something they’ve been any better at with Embiid hardly in the lineup this season. Cleaning the Glass ranks them 18th in transition points allowed per 100 possessions at 115.9 According to NBA.com, Sixers’ opponents have the third-highest effective field goal percentage in transition opportunities at 65.3%.
The team has noticed this themselves, and have also acknowledged just how hard the cycle is to break.
“When you’re missing shots, or you feel like a guy missed you, or you feel like they didn’t call a foul, you don’t get back the way you should get back,” Tyrese Maxey said after the Clippers loss, “and you have your teammates trying to cover for you.”
Maxey admitted that a roster of 11 new players can make that feeling a little harder to overcome. It’s harder to find reassurance without any built-in familiarity.
“It is difficult. I mean, that’s what we signed up for,” Maxey said. “But the guys are fighting, the guys just have to keep pushing.”
Apparently one of the biggest voices to help fight through these struggles is a newcomer in Caleb Martin.
McCain was asked about this problem after a Nov. 2 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies, and he credited Martin for being someone who speaks up.
“I mean, Caleb talks about a lot, we just can’t let those mistakes have a domino effect on our defensive side of the ball, whether it’s a miss box out, we got to get back on defense like that,” McCain said, “just can’t domino into a 10-point swing for them.”
Those domino effect swings are still very much plaguing this team. Perhaps the worst example was a Nov. 18 loss to the Miami Heat. After running up a 19-point lead over the second quarter, the Sixers went on to get outscored 61-26 over the next quarter and a half. They eventually lost that game 106-89.
It also can’t help that one of their biggest voices to push through in Martin is starting to get pretty banged up. He’s vaguely alluded to dealing with a shoulder issue, a likely cause for his odd looking jump shot this season.
Caleb Martin with a lot of tape on his shoulder again tonight: pic.twitter.com/7MgR9UJHdr
— Kyle Neubeck (@KyleNeubeck) November 24, 2024
On top of that, he landed pretty hard on his back in a Nov. 22 win against the Brooklyn Nets, and has been dealing with soreness since. He wasn’t able to play in the second half of the Clippers loss .
Caleb Martin only played the first minute and change of the second half last night. His minutes total for the game was almost 50 percent of his previous season-low. I asked Nick Nurse after the game if something’s going on there: https://t.co/bvc482mBun pic.twitter.com/Pm1lyDBGlF
— Adam Aaronson (@SixersAdam) November 25, 2024
The shooting, like so many problems with this team, will probably get better if the team is able to get healthier. The spacing has been improved with parts of the Big 3 on the court, and Paul George probably won’t shoot 27.8% from three for the rest of the season, but who knows at this point.
It just goes to show that when it’s rained this season it has absolutely poured.