It’s possible that the Sixers will have just nine players in uniform and able to play in Wednesday night’s season opener in Boston with six injured players on the bench in suits.
But even if Brett Brown has nine or 10 players ready to go against the Celtics, including big men like Jahlil Okafor and Nerlens Noel, the Sixers aren’t going to slow down things and slug it out in a half-court offense.
The Sixers are going to run.
“We still have to play with pace or we’re going to end up scoring 40,” Brown said after Monday’s practice at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine.
The team wasn’t too far off 40 points in last Friday’s preseason finale when they posted 65 against Celtics, shooting just 28.9 percent, including 3 for 23 (13 percent) from three-point range. The Sixers got just 11 fast-break points and 42 points in the paint in that game.
To be successful, the Sixers need to use their defense to get in transition and to the rim. With shooters Robert Covington and likely Nik Stauskas out for the opener, the Sixers cannot rely on three-pointers.
At the same time, the Sixers can’t slow it down and ride Okafor. At 19, the rookie has a lot to learn about playing in the post in the NBA. As Brown pointed out, citing an article on the web site, Grantland.com, it’s not easy playing post basketball.
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“Our offense takes a hit more than anything because we just haven’t played together,” Brown said. “You can’t just say, ‘Go play polished offense.’ It takes time and development. … We play poor offense right now.”
The Sixers play decent defense, though. According to Brown, the Sixers forced the fourth-most long two-pointers and second-fewest three-pointers in the NBA during the preseason. Better yet, the Sixers attempted the fifth-most free throws during the seven games of the preseason.
Those stats stand out, Brown says.
“We’re getting to the line,” Brown said. “We play downhill, we run, we attack — there were some good numbers that came out of preseason.”
Even though Brown wants to lean on Okafor and Noel for scoring, the point guards have to drive the bus. As it stands, Isaiah Canaan and undrafted rookie T.J. McConnell are going to run the show until Kendall Marshall and Tony Wroten are healthy. That could be December.
Canaan, who will start on Wednesday night, is a bit of a hybrid guard, combining point and shooting skills to his repertoire. On one side that’s good because the Sixers need shooters. But on another side, the Sixers really need a floor general.
“His defensive quickness has improved a lot,” Brown said about Canaan. “It’s always going to be, 'Can you run a team?' So two-[guard], one-[guard], one, two, who knows? There’s a two in there somewhere and we need a little bit more one. We try to coach him there without taking away his NBA skill. He can score, he can shoot.”
Noel, who will open the season as the starting power forward, says the Sixers all have to contribute to guiding the team. McConnell, who said he would be speechless if he made the team, is picking up on how a point guard has to understand pace in order to run a team.
It’s a nuanced thing, McConnell said, and the point guard has to get all his teammates involved.
“It’s all about pace in NBA,” McConnell said. “If you have good pace and know when to speed guys up and slow them down, the main thing is playing at your own pace and getting guys the ball. We’ve been pretty good at that so far.”
So far, the Sixers have played just exhibition games in which most of the players had limits on their minutes. In the regular season, things will be different. The pace will be faster and the grind of games will be constant.
For Canaan and McConnell, it will be sink or swim. The again, said McConnell, that’s the way it always is.
“We’ve been counted out in everything we’ve done, but we just prove people wrong,” McConnell said. “We know what we need to do and if people don’t believe what we can do, that’s their problem.”