First home loss of the season on Wednesday night. Bummer, too, since the Sixers made a furious charge in the final minutes only to watch a would-be game-winner bounce off the front of the rim.

It was a decent enough look for Al Horford, a relatively clean three-pointer following a kick out pass from Ben Simmons, who drove on Kendrick Nunn, stopped at the foul line, and then spotted his teammate at the arc.

“Ben was trying to do the right thing and probe,” said head coach Brett Brown of the final offensive sequence of the night. “At that point it’s a two-point game, and we didn’t have time outs, it’s on the way, it’s an open look. So I’m not unhappy with that. I give Miami credit; they crowded the paint and Ben is a missile playing downhill. They show a crowd, he kicked it out, and a two would have been good but a three would have won it. I don’t mind the look.”

There was grumbling on social media and sports radio after that play from folks who would have liked to see Simmons try take the 6’3″ rookie to the rack, draw a foul, and/or aggressively seek a game-tying two-point shot. And perhaps that was justified if you look at where Ben picked up the ball on the final possession, a foul line gather with seven seconds remaining on the clock:

With the size and experience advantage there, you’d think maybe Simmons would drive, but he kicked the ball out and the Sixers missed a decent look.

But that’s not why they lost. They lost because they missed open shots and weren’t assertive enough in attacking a 2-3 zone defense that Miami sat in for large chunks of the game.

Navigating zone defense

After a good start by the Sixers, Erik Spoelstra started showing zone primarily in the second quarter, which his team ended up winning 37-19 to take an eight point lead into halftime.

It started out well enough, with Brett Brown’s team freeing up Furkan Korkmaz for a couple of three-pointers, this being one of them:

That’s not gonna go in the Hall of Fame, that play, but it’s a good example of what you do against zone, which is try to play inside-out and flash a big to the foul line in order to collapse defenders.

Tobias Harris ends up holding the ball for a while on that play, but he ultimately does what he’s supposed to do, which is draw a crowd and kick the ball out, which results in good rotation to the weakside and an open three:

So what happened after that? They were getting open looks and missing, and just didn’t seem to be aggressive enough flashing to the middle and trying to make Miami uncomfortable.

Said Brett Brown:

I think that we ended up overthinking it probably too much. I feel like we’ve been really quite good against the zone this year, I think we’ve got the the 5th best offense in the NBA against the zone, so they tell me. I feel like it put us on our heels, and I don’t feel like we responded the way we thought we would. I felt like it crept into our defense and watered us down on both sides of the ball. Finally we get some life in the fourth period. But I feel like it was as much a mentality and mood swing as anything. Structurally, we got the ball inside. We were what, 12 for 39 from three? It just put water on our mood.

Joel Embiid, for what it’s worth, said the zone showed up on the scouting report. The Sixers weren’t unprepared for it, but just didn’t do enough to attack it.

“I felt like we weren’t aggressive enough,” said Embiid, who finished with 22 points on 8-19 shooting. “In the first half I don’t really remember myself being in any action or getting the ball. But it was in the scouting report and we knew they were going to do it, we were prepared for it but I guess we didn’t act on it or do what we talked about.”

It’s true, he didn’t seem to be involved enough, and two of his three assists did not come until the final three minutes of the game.

Check ’em out here:

That first one is a Miami defensive breakdown, the second is a foul line flash and kick out, and on the third Simmons waves him off to the perimeter for the quick hit corner three.

On the second one, Embiid almost fumbles the pass, but gathers in a crowd and then whips the ball to Harris, same inside-to-outside concept as before:

That’s not Embiid’s strength, quarterbacking play with the ball in his hands. Nikola Jokic would have shredded that zone last night, for example, but Joel is still very raw when it comes to big man facilitating.

Here’s another clip, and in this one Simmons is the foul line guy, but he doesn’t get the ball as the Sixers settle for perimeter movement instead. It looks like they have some opportunities to drive and attack close outs, but aren’t able to execute:

James Ennis hesitates on the shot and turns the ball over when looking for Simmons, who was expecting a shot instead. You see a few small cracks there where Harris or Ennis might be able to drive and penetrate, but they aren’t going to be able to slide in there in the same way as a slippery ball-dominant guard or pure scorer, like a Kyrie Irving, for instance. Organically, when left to their own devices, the Sixers will post up, post up, and post up over the course of a game, and you can’t attack zone in that fashion.

More from Brett Brown:

With a zone you’re always trying to go inside out. You’re always trying to find a hole. There are many gaps and we ended up having our best offense when we set an angle screen and played downhill and buried our head and went. Now as a coach, at times you don’t feel like you’re helping your guys if that’s all you got. You want to get Joel Embiid the ball in the middle of the floor, or down along the baseline. Our league obviously isn’t much of a zone league. The 49 possessions we have played (against) zone this year they say we were the 5th best offense. It didn’t feel like it tonight and it felt like it crept into our spirit and our mood. I think it slowed us down. We weren’t proactive.

Philly finished 22-59 on the evening on uncontested field goals, which amounts to 37.2%. And that 12-39 number from three that Brown mentioned is 30.8%, which is well below the 36.2% the Sixers have been shooting from three this season on 29.5 attempts per game. So Miami did a nice job of upping that number and altering the shot plot that you’ll see in a typical Philadelphia game. Credit to Spoelstra for rolling out the zone and sticking with it.

Other notes:

  • Eddie Alvarez rang the ball. He spoke to media at halftime and I’ll have that story posted a little later this morning.
  • Jimmy Butler was booed every time he touched the ball, again.
  • Oskar Lindblom was at the game, got a great shout from the crowd.
  • Trey Burke collected another DNP-CD.
  • They only turned the ball over 13 times, so that wasn’t a huge problem against the zone.
  • 15 offensive rebounds resulted in 17 second chance points.
  • 17 points for Josh Richardson on 17 shots, with a 3-10 mark from downtown. He’s still rusty offensively since coming back from injury.
  • Simmons hasn’t tried a three since knocking down the corner look against Cleveland (the Denver one was a heave)
  • Miami did hit some crazy shots last night. There was a second half sequence where the Sixers had a great defensive possession and then Nunn banked in a 27-footer as the shot clock expired.
  • The 14-2 Sixer run which ended with an Embiid turnover and Miami three was a killer.
  • Full court pressure in the 4th quarter really helped Philly claw back into the game, might see more of that moving forward since they’ve got the personnel to do it.

Have a fantastic Thursday.