Not that the result mattered at all, but the Sixers won their first competition against another team since March 11 on Friday, beating the Memphis Grizzlies 90-83 in a scrimmage at Walt Disney World.
The teams played four 10-minute quarters for this first scrimmage. The Sixers will play a full 48 minutes Sunday at noon when they scrimmage the Thunder.
Tobias Harris had 15 points and 10 rebounds in 23 minutes, the most of any Sixer. And, as we’ve only said three times before in his career (once in the preseason, twice in the regular season), Ben Simmons made a three-pointer.
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Below are our observations on that and more:
Impressions of the new starters
It took the Sixers’ new starting lineup of Shake Milton, Josh Richardson, Tobias Harris, Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid a little while to get settled. Embiid missed his first three field goal attempts, all jumpers, as Memphis took an early 8-2 lead.
From there, we got a good sense of why Brett Brown decided to turn to this unit. Milton looked comfortable running the offense, often hitting Simmons with a pass at the elbow to get the action started. He had a nice sequence where he sprinted back to take a charge, then nailed a three-pointer from the right wing on the ensuing possession. The second-year guard, who’d shot an absurd 60.4 percent from three in his last nine games, had six points and three assists.
NBA
The defensive rotations were as precise as one could hope for after over four months without a game. Simmons, the NBA’s leader in steals, was healthy, agile and disruptive, and the Grizzlies had little success with dribble penetration. No Sixer had any trouble handling their individual matchup, and the defense was impressively in sync.
Moving forward, one imagines the Sixers would like to further develop Milton’s pick-and-roll partnerships with Simmons and Embiid. For a lineup that hadn’t played one minute together before Friday, though, this was an encouraging start.
A ‘paradigm shift’?
Simmons attempted a three from the left corner in the first quarter, coming up short.
Brown has endorsed Simmons’ outside shooting in practices and said the two-time All-Star’s teammates are encouraging him to shoot when open.
“… I feel like his spirit, his mindset coming down here … to willingly find space and find threes, that has been a paradigm shift, an attitudinal change,” Brown said Thursday. “… I have seen a player that is cocky and playing, and when the game says you should shoot because nobody is on you, he does. And he doesn't blink, and his teammates love it, and so does his head coach.”
Even that lone first-half attempt would have been notable. But, early in the third quarter, Simmons drained a catch-and-shoot three. Kyle Anderson played off him and he took the available shot.
Far more impressive than Simmons’ three-pointer was that he had nine assists, three steals, only one turnover and was dynamic as usual in transition. But the Sixers have been feeding into the buzz about Simmons’ jumper, and we did see a deviation from the prior norm Friday.
An intriguing lineup
For about the final two minutes of the first quarter and first two of the second, the Sixers played a lineup of Milton, Matisse Thybulle, Furkan Korkmaz, Al Horford and Embiid. Given Brown said as recently as Tuesday that Horford and Embiid had yet to practice together, it’s worth noting their pairing and looking closer at who they were surrounded by.
The Korkmaz-Horford duo has been excellent this season, so the idea of keeping those two together as much as possible makes sense. Lineups with Horford and Embiid on the court have struggled most on offense — the Sixers actually have an excellent defensive rating of 101.9 with them on the court — which means there’s a little more leeway for a weaker defensive player like Korkmaz.
Milton’s ball handling and shooting and Thybulle’s perimeter defense also seem to round out the lineup pretty well, in theory.
Korkmaz was solid in this one, hitting one of the Sixers’ 10 threes and scoring seven points. Horford had five points and five assists in 19 minutes. With Horford at center and Embiid on the bench in the third quarter, the Sixers allowed the Grizzlies to cut a deficit once as large as 29 points down to 10.
Figuring out the rotation
The Sixers played 10 players in the first half, with Mike Scott the one hypothetical contender for a rotation spot who stayed on the bench. Brown plans to use a 10-man rotation when play resumes and cut that down to nine for the postseason.
Scott did share a frontcourt with Horford late in the third quarter, replacing Simmons at power forward. Since Embiid sat out the entire second half and only played 13 minutes overall, it’s unclear if Scott would have received playing time in a typical game. There’s still time to sort everything out, but it appears Scott is currently on the outside of the rotation.
The end of the bench closed out the game in a situation that felt very similar to summer league. Backup center Norvel Pelle even made a three-pointer.
A fun day back at the office
This scrimmage was surely enjoyable to watch for Sixers fans, and it seemed the team was having a good time, too. The Sixers forced 14 first-half turnovers, pouncing on the Grizzlies’ sloppiness, and profited with a few easy dunks on the fast break.
It wasn’t in transition, but Matisse Thybulle’s explosive slam may have been the highlight of the afternoon.
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