Al Horford doesn't look like a lost cause in Sixers' win over Kings

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The Sixers outscored the Kings by 41 points when Al Horford was on the floor Thursday night in a 125-108 win that snapped a nine-game road losing streak.

Regardless of how one feels about plus-minus as a statistic, that is an impressive number. In fact, dating back to the 2000-01 season, it’s tied for the best single-game plus-minus by a Sixer — Andre Iguodala was also a plus-41 on Feb. 20, 2008 in a 40-point win over the Knicks.

Horford, though, apparently does not pay a great deal of attention to his plus-minus.

“It usually equals that you’re going to get a win,” he told reporters in Sacramento. “That’s what we did tonight. I still don’t understand the whole plus-minus thing. I’m just glad that we won.”

With the exception of his rookie year, Horford has posted a positive plus-minus in every season of his NBA career. While it’s a statistic that can be muddied by factors like the quality of players one shares the floor with and garbage-time minutes, that track record does suggest Horford has consistently made his teams better. This year, that hasn’t been the case.

Horford has rarely been the player general manager Elton Brand and the Sixers thought they were getting when they signed him to a four-year deal with $97 million guaranteed. The pairing with Joel Embiid hasn’t worked offensively, he’s often been a step (or several steps) slow on defense and his outside shooting has been poor (32.8 percent from three-point range on 4.4 attempts per game). He’s 33 years old and under contract for three more seasons. Saying the money spent on Horford would likely have been best used elsewhere is like saying that the Sixers are rather difficult to beat at home.

With all of that said, Horford is a Sixer and, at a minimum, will be one for the remainder of the season. Everyone involved — Brand, Brett Brown, Horford, his teammates — has to hold out hope that things can still work, that Horford can help the Sixers win playoff games and series.

Thursday was a good night for all those parties.

I just feel like tonight, all over the place, he was just dominant,” Brown said, “Defensively; I thought he for sure made some shots; we went at him in the post a few times and I thought he delivered with back to the basket moves. … To see that in his game after it’s been a little bit up and down, that’s a hell of a great statement, it’s something that we needed. And it’s still — we have 19 games left — trying to run this thing down and get him healthy and spirited, as we saw tonight, for the playoffs. 

As the Sixers’ starting center over the past four games with Embiid sidelined by a left shoulder sprain, Horford has recorded 24 assists and six turnovers. Though he’s frequently looked diminished physically, he is still one of the better big man passers in the league. The Sixers’ shift to spreading the floor and targeting more threes while Embiid and Ben Simmons (nerve impingement in lower back) are out has benefited him. They’ve been shooting those threes well, too, hitting 17 of 37 against Sacramento and 45.7 percent in their last four contests. 

“I just think that when we’re moving the ball like that and we’re playing that way, that’s when we’re at our best,” Horford said. “Guys, it also helps them get easy looks, gets their confidence going. I just want us to continue to play that way as a group. Just making the game easy for each other.”

Though the beginning of Horford’s Sixers tenure has not gone according to plan, there still is a case to be made that better days are ahead. It rests on him making some of the wide-open threes he’s missed, peaking when it matters most and helping the Sixers win minutes without Embiid in the playoffs instead of losing them terribly, as they did last year.

Is that outline still credible with 19 regular-season games to go and the Sixers 2.5 games behind the Heat for the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference?

Mike Scott, a former teammates of Horford’s with the Hawks, seems to have faith. 

“He was definitely aggressive in his post-ups, punishing defenders,” Scott said of Horford, who had 18 points and eight rebounds. “His shot was on. His defense was elite. … Al’s a pro, man. I’m always behind him. He’s my guy. He was my vet my rookie year, so I’m always in his corner. He did great tonight.”

Horford’s eye-catching plus-minus would indeed support the assertion that he was great Thursday night. Looking ahead, however, asking him to be great seems like it would be a stretch.

Asking him to be solid, closer to the player he was in Boston and valuable in the playoffs … that might still be feasible. For now, the Sixers have to trust that it is. 

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