Here we are at the halfway mark with your team, your town, your 76ers sitting at 25-16 and 6th place in the Eastern Conference. Joel Embiid is injured, the roster looks like an incongruous fit, and Ben Simmons is, of course, a frequent topic of media and fan frustration.

That’s the bad news.

The good news is that they’ve beaten Milwaukee, Boston (3x), Indy, Toronto, and Miami, who are the five teams currently above them in the standings. In a way, they’ve passed numerous tests against the best the east has to offer. The struggles take place on the road versus teams like Orlando and Washington and other lesser squads that the Sixers just can’t seem to get motivated to play against.

That said, here are some things they can do to start winning again, beginning tonight with Brooklyn at the Wells Fargo Center.

1. Get to the foul line/pound the paint

In Monday night’s loss, the Sixers shot two free throws in the game’s five final minutes. They lost 101-96.

When this team started 5-0 a few months back, they were getting to the line 26.2 times per game, which was 10th overall. Now they’re 23rd in the league with only 21.6 trips to the line on average. Additionally, they were shooting 74.8% (17th) from the line back then, a number which has fallen just slightly to 74.6%, making them the NBA’s 7th-worst foul shooting team.

Simply put, there’s absolutely no reason that team starting a seven-footer, two 6’10” guys, and a 6’9″ small forward should be getting to line at a bottom-ten league-wide rate. Part of the drop off here is because the Sixers aren’t attacking the paint as much as they used to, and while they started #1 in the league in points in the paint (PITP), they’ve fallen to 13th in this category. Finishing through contact, or even inviting contact, is something they’ve gotten away from.

And when you look at it individually, Simmons’ per game free throw attempts are down from 5.4 last year to 4.5 this year. He’s shooting the same 60%, so no improvement there. Embiid has gotten his rate up three percentage points, to 83.7%, but he’s only shooting 8.1 free throws a game, down from 10.1 last year.

As of January 15th, 2020, there are eight NBA teams averaging more than 24 free throws per game. Six of those teams have winning records.

2. More efficiency in the clutch

The Sixers were a very good ‘clutch’ team last year, which, in simple terms, is the final five minutes of a game where the score is close. Clutch is defined by NBA stats as:

“the plays that occur during the 4th quarter or overtime, with less than five minutes remaining, and neither team ahead by more than five points”

Here are some of the Sixers’ clutch numbers and rankings:

  • 5.0 field goal attempts per game (29th)
  • 45.8 field goal percentage (4th)
  • 27.7 three point average (25th)
  • 3.3 free throw attempts (12th)
  • 86% from foul line (6th)
  • 2.2 fouls drawn (13th)

This batch of stats complements the first entry on free throw shooting. Turns out the Sixers are really poor from three later in the fourth quarter of close games, but they typically score well from two-point range and get to the foul line a little bit more in tight scenarios. They need to do more of that through four quarters.

If you further toggle the numbers to “totals” instead of “per game,” you find that the Sixers are 13-47 from three in clutch scenarios this season. That’s a rough number and exemplifies the deep ball problem.

Some more stats:

  • 1.2 turnovers per game (26th)
  • 26 clutch games played (2nd most)
  • 57.7 winning % in clutch games (10th)
  • 8 points per clutch scenario (22nd)
  • 2.3 personal fouls (19th)

It’s crazy how many close games they’ve been in this season. Only OKC has played more clutch games. The Sixers are 15-11 in these games while the Thunder are 17-11. The team that has played the fewest clutch scenario games is the Milwaukee Bucks, since they’ve been obliterating most of the squads they face. Their games typically are not close.

Captain obvious would tell you that a little more efficiency down the stretch would have this team in the top four of the conference, instead of the top six.

3. Hunt corner threes

I wrote the other day about Brett Brown wanting his team to shoot more three pointers, which doesn’t seem like the way to go. They’re actually 10-3 when they shoot 26 or fewer threes this year.

Where they do excel is in the corners, an area where they shoot 42.3%, which is third in the NBA. They shoot just 34.7% from above the break three point areas, which is 20th in the league.

Compare that corner rate to their frequency, though, and they are trying only the 23rd most corner threes out of 30 teams, despite being one of the best shooting squads from those two areas.

They need to do a better job spacing into the corners, and it’s not coming from Embiid and Simmons obviously. It’s not coming from Al Horford. Josh Richardson will get himself down into the left corner and Tobias Harris will find either side occasionally, but this has been bench shooter territory this season, as you can see in this short clip:

4. Hit an open shot

The Sixers only shoot 54.5 contested shots per game, which is 30th in the NBA. Dead last. They generate open three point and shorter looks with regularity.

Yet they only shoot 46.8% overall (8th) and 35.5% from three (17th), numbers that should be higher when you look at the types of shots they typically take.

And when you go through the shots dashboard and look at three points attempts with the nearest defender six or more feet away, which we define as “wide open,” the Sixers only shoot 37.5%, which is 18th.

You don’t need advanced numbers to tell you that this team needs to start hitting these open looks. They were 18-50 Monday night on uncontested shots and could have used one or both of these Matisse Thybulle fourth quarter shots to fall: