*Cue michael jackson eating popcorn*
Lol... This forum has a real problem. I've found it to be insufferable at times. Like many others who have already abandoned this place, I find myself gravitating to other venues to discuss the NBA and Celtics. Here there are too many out-of-turn comments not backed up with knowledge. Too many hot heads who are far too eager to attack opinions they don't understand, or take opinions out of context looking for "holes" and trying to "Gotcha" one another. It hasn't been a fun place to contribute to.
I sometimes forget that a lot of people here have narrow vision when it comes to the NBA. Let me start over and provide some additional detail for clarity...
Philly's still trying to figure out what to do with their big man log jam. They have a transcendent prospect in Embiid and frankly their other two young centers (Okafor and Noel) still have allstar potential despite the very vocal naysayers. The team obviously needed to experiment with lineups to see what can and can't work, but unfortunately they got hit with a rash of injuries. They didn't get around to experimenting with Embiid and Okafor together until last month. Noel was injured for most of the season and is finally working his way back.
Everyone following that team has been very anxious to see how Embiid and Noel would look next to each other. In-fact, Philly fans have been anxious to see how Embiid and Noel play together since Embiid was drafted. With Noel finally starting to look healthy, we finally got a look at those two together this week against the Timberwolves (a game Philly won). It was a very brief stint. It was something their coach deliberately said he was going to experiment with prior to the game... and we got a very very small sampling of it.
Going into Tuesday’s match-up with Minnesota, Brett Brown indicated his plan was to “force feed” the frontline combination of Joel Embiid and Nerlens Noel.
“I would like to look at that as much as we can over a period of time,” said Brown, who, along with input from ownership and the front office, devoted much of the final two weeks of December to tapping into the potential of an Embiid-Jahlil Okafor pairing.
And so, to start Tuesday’s second quarter, Brown deployed Embiid and Noel as a duo. All in all, their stint together lasted three minutes, 15 seconds, and proved to be solid.
During this stretch, the Sixers outscored the Timberwolves by a point, 7-6. Embiid accounted for all of the team’s offense, which was generated exclusively from halfcourt sets.
It's something they are looking at.
“You get into a situation where you walk that line of developing your guys, trying to get them on the court,” Brown explained. But, as important as growing prospects is to the Sixers, they also want to be winning, and winning more regularly.
Brown’s post-game remarks spoke to a point he and President of Basketball Operations Bryan Colangelo have both stressed in recent weeks when discussing the Sixers’ center rotation. The expectation is that the situation will be a fluid one for the foreseeable future.
“There’s a lot of moving parts with our bigs, trying to grow these guys, put them in positions where they can succeed, try to win a game, do the right thing for the program,” said Brown. “There’s no clear answer on that.”
Joel Embiid was asked about the pairing and had the following to say:
“I thought defensively we were pretty good,” Embiid said Tuesday, grading out his and Noel's joint efforts versus the Wolves. “Offensively, I think we shared the ball, we knew our spots. Hopefully in the future, we keep playing together.
So then we saw a little more of that pairing tonight. And yes, it was a very short stint, but in that short stint, it looked pretty encouraging. In the few few shorts minutes they shared on the court Noel made a dunk off an Embiid assist. Noel stole the ball from Smart. Embiid made an 8 foot shot. Both offensively and defensively, it looked like it might actually work for them. That's what I was conveying in my comment. I didn't feel it necessary to give everyone a lesson about what's going on with that team... I forgot how petulant and aggressive this forum can be. I figured a simple "They actually look like they can play together" was enough. My bad.
Topic: Sixers (9-24) at Celtics (21-14) Game #36 1/6/17 (Read 65378 times)