January 03, 2017
The Sixers had worked on the play just yesterday, and there are a few options for the inbounder to choose depending on how the defense is playing.
Dario Saric took the first read, which was Robert Covington looping around Joel Embiid’s screen at the elbow (while Nik Stauskas and Ersan Ilyasova at least initially played decoy on the weak side). It was the right decision, and the Sixers had a 93-91 win.
“At the point where Robert’s turning the corner, you got to feel, ‘Is Andrew Wiggins chasing him?’ because you have to throw it to open space,” Brett Brown said after the game. “And you really have to have a lot of guts to throw the ball. That’s sort of the last thing we talked about: Have the guts to throw it. If you see it, throw it.”
Brown eventually added that good inbounders need two qualities, height and guts. Late in games early in his rookie year, Saric had some adventures throwing inbounds passes (the season’s first win against Indiana comes to mind). But on this night, mimicking a soccer throw-in, he got the job done.
“Right on the money, right where it needed to be,” Covington said.
For his part, Embiid set just enough of a moving screen on his college teammate and buddy, Wiggins. This was subtler than what Kevin Garnett used to get away with, the slightest of hip checks. There is no official on the planet making that call in that spot.
If the lob wasn’t open, Embiid was the next option on the play.
“They’re going to pay attention to me, so I used that as bait,” Embiid said. “So I just set the screen and Rob got open. If he wasn’t open, I was just going to try and get the ball and get a quick shot.”
Even with the great screen and pass, it was still an extremely tough finish by Covington, who didn’t know how open Embiid’s screen had sprung him until he checked Twitter after the game.
Tonight’s game was a microcosm of Covington’s season. He couldn’t throw a ball in the ocean (4-14 FG, 1-9 3P) but played excellent perimeter defense (Wiggins, who torched the Sixers in Minny, went 2-15 from the field).
Unfortunately for Covington, bad offense is more noticeable to fans and it’s safe to say the Wells Fargo Center crowd has been all over his case for a few weeks now. Case in point, he heard boos after his first missed three-pointer on the night.
“I just keep playing. I never let other people’s comments or anything get to me because at the end of the day… I’m never going to let nobody dictate what I do.”
Even with the brutal shooting, Brown played Covington a team-high 39 minutes because he kept guarding and rebounding, pulling down a team-high 10. The decision ultimately paid off.
“No matter what, the fans can get on me as much as they want,” Covington said. “I never let that get in my head because at the end of the day, I still got a job to do. I got to guard the best people on the other team and I still got to make plays for my teammates so I can’t get caught up [about] what’s going on in the crowd. I get caught up with what my teammates and coaches are talking about so it goes in one ear and out the other.
“I just keep playing. I never let other people’s comments or anything get to me because at the end of the day… I’m never going to let nobody dictate what I do.”
Follow Rich on Twitter: @rich_hofmann
