The script has become pretty familiar at this point. An opposing perimeter player gets going in the first half, leading to questions about Doc Rivers' choice to stick Ben Simmons on a relatively harmless assignment. Then the second half comes around, Simmons is put on the top option for the other team, and offensive momentum screeches to a halt, with Simmons jamming up the gears and the complementary players around him sliding into roles befitting their talent.
This is by design, so much so that Rivers talked about it before Saturday's game against Brooklyn even took place, addressing the process behind where (and when) they line Simmons up on defense.
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"There's a lot of decisions that go into that," Rivers said pregame. "Some is who you think he'll be the most effective on in the fourth quarter. Who keeps him out of foul trouble? Because some of these guys they do such a good job of drawing a foul, you don't want to lose them that way. And then the bottom line is they’d all three played, Ben at some point would have guarded all three for sure. We like moving him around. We do it now. And, you know, we'll do it tonight some as well."
The head coach lived up to his word. Simmons spent very little time on James Harden in the first half, with Harden's ability to beat the first line of defense and attack the rim proving tough for Danny Green to deal with. By halftime, Harden already had a 13-5-7 line despite miserable shooting from deep, and he got off to a terrific start to the third quarter, scoring or assisting on 11 points in the first two minutes of the second half.
Two changes made a big difference: Simmons spending more time on Harden, and a lineup switch from Rivers that put Simmons, Green, and Matisse Thybulle on the floor at the same time. Philadelphia closed the quarter on a big run and they never looked back.
Simmons was at the heart of that. It was punctuated with a possession late in the quarter where Harden could not move or get by Simmons no matter how hard he tried, with the former MVP throwing his arms up at an official, exasperated that he couldn't get a foul call.
You would be forgiven for believing that Simmons took the assignment personally, his connection to Harden in trade rumors all the motivation he needed to go out there with something to prove. Asked about that dynamic after the game, Simmons dismissed the significance of guarding Harden specifically, though he didn't have the strongest poker face while delivering a message we hear from him regularly.
"I look forward to playing everybody. Especially Brooklyn now, because they have such great, offensively gifted players," Simmons said. "I love that challenge playing teams like this. Obviously, they're missing [Kevin Durant] and Kyrie [Irving] but still a good team. But you know, I want to play the best players in the league, every night. I love the challenge."
Whether or not he needed or relied on that extra bit of juice, Simmons' second-half defense has been critical for Philadelphia this season, and it shines through in a bunch of different ways.
As Sixers fans have found out the hard way in years past, there are ways around a good perimeter defender if you make an effort to nullify them. James Harden is as good at anyone in the league at engineering switches, a master of either beating his new matchup or exploiting chaos as teams pass assignments off to one another. Simmons was able to work in tandem with teammates to avoid those happening at all on certain possessions, like on this play that was fortunate not to end in a Brooklyn turnover.
(That play is also a great example of the strides Furkan Korkmaz has taken on the defensive end of the floor, with Philly's bench shooter buying in on what Rivers and Dan Burke have demanded from him. Korkmaz shows to prevent Harden from stepping into a three, Simmons ties up the screener, and the duo executes a terrific pass off, with Korkmaz remaining in good position to ball deny right up until Harden throws the pass and has it deflected away.)
Against a player like Harden switches are inevitable, and it's not always easy to continue making a defensive impact when those plays come. It takes a bit of calculated gambling, and Simmons' experience has taught him when it's appropriate to take those chances, on top of how to do so. With his size and positioning, Simmons is able to disrupt players on the way to the basket and prevent a clear passing lane for a drive-and-kick. Even if he hadn't forced Harden into a miscue on this play, he has the tools to recover should the worst-case scenario play out:
This is far from the first time the Sixers have turned it on in the second half in order to pull away for a win. Philadelphia's defense has been significantly better in the second half of games, with the Sixers allowing nearly five fewer points per 100 possessions after halftime. That's a gap roughly equivalent to the chasm between the league's best defense and the ninth-best defense in the league. It's an even bigger gap if you compare teams further down the standings, the distance between the 10th ranked Cleveland Cavaliers and the 28th ranked Portland Trailblazers
Tightening up on defense may seem intuitive with the way people think about the flow of NBA games and the increased pressure of fourth quarters, but it is absolutely not a given. The Lakers boast the best defense in the league and are nearly four points worse on defense in second halves. The Utah Jazz, a two-way force who the Sixers are set to face on their upcoming road trip, are significantly worse on defense in the final 24 minutes, 7.7 points worse compared to their first-half performances.
There's a lot of noise to sort through there — strength of schedule, small sample size, fluky shooting trends, and so on. Frankly, a big part of this trend for Philadelphia is the unsustainably great defense they're playing in fourth quarters, a factor that didn't matter much on Saturday night. But their success on defense does line up with changes we're seeing take place in many of these games, both in their personnel assignments and their general increase in intensity.
This matchup will look quite different when the Nets have their full star trio available and ready to rip, and as Rivers pointed out prior the game Saturday, Simmons will have to toggle between defending three future Hall of Famers for Philadelphia to have a chance. They will likely not have the luxury of waiting to spring him on top Brooklyn options, inspiring questions about whether he can hang with Irving/Durant/Harden without fouling for damn near 48 minutes.
Simmons is not backing down from that challenge.
"We want to play everybody. We want to prove that we're the best team in the league," Simmons said Saturday night. "And in order to do that you got to play everybody. Obviously, they had KD and Kyrie missing, which you know, we still want to compete against a full Brooklyn team, and really get a feel for where we're at."
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