Sixers Week In Review: Ben Simmons Continues To Shine

Positives

• The Sixers finally made the right move, and shut down Markelle Fultz. It was painfully obvious that Fultz was laboring through the first three games of the year, and he was no good to them in his current state.
• Ben Simmons…wow. Simmons has been turning heads left and right through his first six NBA games. Ben started off the week with a 21-point triple-double against the Pistons. He followed that up with solid stat lines in the next two games as well, including a new career-high 23 against the Mavericks. He’s just scratching the surface, folks.
• Joel Embiid put together some impressive stat lines, dropping 30 against the Pistons, and over 20 against the Rockets and Mavericks. The news wasn’t all good for Embiid this week (see below) but he’s been providing the team with good scoring numbers.
• T.J. McConnell has probably been this team’s third best player (at times, arguably second) behind Embiid and Simmons. T.J. enters every game off the bench with the mentality to be a pest and create problems for the opposing team. He’s been just that. Against the Rockets, McConnell had six points, nine assists, six steals, and five rebounds. He followed that up with 15 points, eight assists, four boards and a steal against Dallas.
• Dario Saric has struggled to find his place in the rotation this year, but seemed to start to come out of it a bit on Saturday against the Mavericks, knocking down four three’s as a starter for the first time this season.
• Timothe Luwawu-Cabbarot struggled over the first week of the season, and lost his place in the rotation to Justin Anderson for a game. But an injury to J.J. Redick opened up minutes for TLC on Saturday, and the second-year man responded with a good showing, knocking down a couple of big three’s in a limited run off of the bench.
• As a team, two wins in three games makes for a pretty solid week.

Negatives

• I’m not among the people that are out to pile on Brett Brown, but the one thing I will criticize him for is that McConnell should have been playing above Jerryd Bayless in the final minutes of the Houston game on Wednesday. He more than earned the right to be out there for that stretch, but at least Brown realized the mistake and played McConnell in the critical moments of the Dallas win.
• Joel Embiid continues to spend too much time camped out at the three-point line. I love Embiid’s three-point ability, but this shouldn’t be the primary focus of his game, not when the Sixers have the other outside threats on this roster. Embiid’s got to spend more time attacking down low and living at the free-throw line.
• Joel has also been turning the ball over far too much. He’s been averaging just under five per game, he’s got to cut that down.
• Embiid’s durability only took six games to rear it’s ugly head. He went for an x-ray on his hand after Saturday’s game, though the results fortunately came back negative.
• Ben Simmons played a little soft at times in the Houston game. He botched several easy layups on plays where he should have been more aggressive. However, Ben corrected this in the Maverick game, hammering down several dunks on the fast break opportunities he had in that game.
• The Sixers botching the win against the Houston Rockets was painful to watch.