Don’t look now, but the Sixers are on a four-game winning streak and have won back-to-back road games.

They haven’t beaten any elite teams in that stretch, but they found ways to win close games without Joel Embiid and improved a pretty sad road record from 7-14 to 9-14, which is a step in the right direction. Furthermore, they’re now 18-11 in games that have come down to five or fewer points in the final five minutes of the fourth quarter, which is a fancy way to say that they’re figuring out how to win tight contests while gathering boatloads of experience in the process.

These are the kinds of games the Sixers need to win if they’re going to improve from 5th in the East to 2nd, a gap separating Philadelphia and Miami by only two games right now. Stacking wins against bad teams, especially on the road, is how Milwaukee jumped way out in front for the top seed in the Eastern Conference.

Take your pick of Ben Simmons stats from a day in which he posted 34 points, 12 rebounds, 12 assists, 5 steals, and two blocks while turning the ball over only three times. He played 42 minutes of locked-in basketball and I think the most significant takeaway from Ben’s night was:

Foul shooting

He got to the line 14 times and hit 10 of those shots, a 71.4% number that is 13 percentage points higher than his season average of 58%.

This was only the fourth time this season that Ben got to the foul line on double-digit occasions, and it’s one of those things people have been wanting to see more of since he’s an incredibly gifted athlete who can get to the rim at will, draw contact, and earn cheap free throws. Shoot a little better from there, and perhaps that extends to him feeling a little more comfortable shooting field goal attempts during live play.

For what it’s worth, and maybe this is just coincidence, but the Sixers are 5-0 in games where Simmons gets to the line more than eight times:

Those teams aren’t very good, the New Yorks and Clevelands of the world, but that’s kind of the point – when playing against lesser opposition Ben should theoretically be able to get to the rack whenever he wants, draw fouls, and then find himself on the free throw line. That’s part of the “bully ball” mentality Brett Brown talked about preseason and Ben has the DNA to do it.

Playing the 5

One of the reasons Simmons was able to do so much of what he did on Monday was because he played a large chunk of the second half as a small-ball center in a lineup that looked like this:

  1. Raul Neto
  2. Matisse Thybulle
  3. Furkan Korkmaz
  4. Mike Scott
  5. Ben Simmons

It made a lot of sense for multiple reasons.

First, Brooklyn didn’t have DeAndre Jordan available, so Simmons was able to play his small lineup minutes against the likes of Jarrett Allen and rookie Nic Claxton. Second, it allowed the Sixers to juggle the roster to keep the ineffective Kyle O’Quinn and Jonah Bolden off the floor. Third, Ben as a post passer and screen/roll guy has been a nice wrinkle we’ve seen more of in recent weeks, and playing this position allows him to do more of it.

To that point, look at some of the great rolling and big man stuff he was able to do at the end of the third quarter in this lineup:

So why not more of Simmons at the five?

You can’t do this all the time because Ben isn’t going to be the rim protector that a Joel Embiid or Al Horford is. Brooklyn is a smaller team that typically kills you with guards, which is why the strategy works a bit better in this case. Playing Ben at the five against Bam Adebayo or Giannis or a Marc Gasol would be a much tougher assignment on the defensive end.

But good on Brett Brown for trying this and letting it go for a large portion of the third quarter and into the fourth. The Sixers looked good doing it and I feel like it loosened them up a bit when the starters came back in later in the period.

Matisse Thybulle

Offensively he’s still so raw, but when you’re ripping off defensive hustle plays like these, then you get minutes:

It’s crazy to watch this team turn up the defense in the fourth quarter, like they just flip a switch and the intensity goes up to 11. Brooklyn turned the ball over a ridiculous 10 times in that period, which accounted for 45% of their 22 total turnovers. That, combined with 12 offensive rebounds, gave the Sixers a 94-81 advantage in total field goal attempts, which is almost unheard of, that disparity. Philly tried 13 more shots and ended up winning by six points.

Other notes:

  • Mike Scott finished with five offensive rebounds. Not sure what got into him, but he looked like a combination of James Ennis and Ersan Ilyasova on the glass.
  • Al Horford: 9 for 15 for 19 points plus six rebounds and zero turnovers. He had a beautiful fourth quarter block on Jarrett Allen and looked confident in his mid-range game, hitting a couple of shots over Allen and finishing well at the rim, too. His three at the end of the game was monstrous.
  • 39 three pointers is way too many for this team to shoot, but the game just played out that way with a smaller lineup surrounding Ben Simmons at times. They got away with only going 13-39 (33%) because of the total shot disparity.
  • 23 fast break points for the Sixers is a big number, even by their standards.
  • Only 13 Sixer turnovers. This number has dropped drastically since Brett Brown adjusted his approach and started calling more half court sets. Ben Simmons individually has also gotten his TO number down by a full 1.5 per game in January.
  • 15 points on 17 shots for Tobias Harris, who had multiple chances at the end to blow this one open, but couldn’t connect.
  • The Sixers moved up to 5th place in the East with the win. They can pull level with the Raptors if they beat them in Toronto tomorrow night.