October 18, 2017
Otto Porter scored eight points in the first two-and-a-half minutes of the game. Bradley Beal's jumper was falling. John Wall was getting superstar calls in transition, barrelling toward the rim and getting to the free-throw line.
And then you looked up at the scoreboard, and the Sixers were walking into the locker room with a 59-56 lead at halftime. They would eventually squander that lead and fall to Washington 120-115. but hanging around in this sort of game, let alone leading it, would have seemed impossible for the Sixers even a year ago. Their personnel has not allowed them to keep up in shootouts with other teams, and that's a big reason why Brett Brown made defense and effort their calling cards.
It's a new year for Philadelphia, and it damn sure showed in the season opener. A big part of their offensive explosion in the first game can be credited to one man: Ben Simmons. He came out in the opening game and looked completely at home on an NBA court, routinely blowing by defenders and getting into the painted area. Simmons may have had more easy layups on Wednesday night than he did all preseason.
Sixers fans should get used to this sort of thing because Simmons is matchup nightmare no matter who the Sixers are playing against. What's more remarkable than his individual brilliance, however, is how the Sixers team already seems to be following Simmons' lead, as if having him at the center of their attack is woven into their DNA.
Without a jump shot to fall back on, Simmons has to make a lot of his money in the transition game for the time being, catching defenses before they get set. Knowing this, the Sixers played at a breakneck pace against the Wizards, tearing down the court whenever there was a turnover or defensive rebound to fast break off of.
The primary difference you see this year versus last comes down to personnel. Not only do you have Simmons rebounding the ball and pushing the tempo, but you have multiple shooting threats to fill lanes as they move the ball up the court. JJ Redick botches this play by stepping out of bounds, but look how quickly Philadelphia stretches Washington's transition defense here, thanks to Redick's threat from the wing and Simmons' ability to grab-and-go.
The Sixers may have added some veterans to the mix, but their youth is still their defining feature. Their transition philosophy reflects this, because they are going to push the pace at every possible opportunity. After Dario Saric made a tremendous play to stuff John Wall on a transition opportunity, the Sixers were all dead even near their own basket. Within seconds, Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot is streaking down the court, and TJ McConnell, who fanned out to the left to provide an outlet, hits him in stride for another easy bucket.
It should go without saying, but the passing talent the Sixers have this year is an embarrassment of riches compared to years past. There's a misconception that the NBA's conversion to "positionless basketball" has deemphasized or devalued playmaking at certain positions. If anything, the opposite is true. Good teams need guys at several positions who can make plays for their teammates.
The Sixers have the benefit of having guys at different heights who can set up their teammates. Saric is going to spend less time on the ball this year, but just as with Simmons, he has an ability to see over the defense that can really hurt opponents. After it looks like an offensive set has stalled here, Saric sees Jodie Meeks cheat just a couple steps too far away from Redick. He delivers a rope right into his shooter's hands, and Redick isn't going to miss too many of these.
The leaguewide desire to have multiple playmakers on the floors also explains why the Sixers wanted to get Markelle Fultz badly enough that they traded up for the No. 1 pick this summer. Fultz is in more of a combo-guard mold than Simmons is, but the Sixers will need both his scoring and his playmaking to get to the promised land.
Fultz's shot remains MIA—and boy, that is still one of the strangest possible developments I can imagine—but Fultz was truthfully pretty excellent on offense against the Wizards. This was a really pretty play from the group, with a series of quick passes freeing up Amir Johnson at the rim.
Fultz spent a lot of his time off-the-ball on Wednesday, looking to score rather than set guys up, but in a few quick flashes throughout the game, Fultz showed off nice timing with his franchise center, baiting the opposing defense until the last possible second before dumping off to Embiid for a jam.
The only place this collective brilliance didn't show up was in crunch time, when the Sixers coughed up multiple opportunities to draw level with the Wizards. There will be growing pains there, both because the Sixers rely on a lot of young players and because the group is still trying to find some semblance of a plan in the game's final moments.
But given what we saw in their overall offensive performance on Wednesday night, that will come with time. This is the best offensive unit the Sixers have had in some time, and it's only going to get better as the season rolls on.
