The Sixers are the NBA's Best "Clutch" Team
One of the popular things on social media these days is to mold a series of numbers into a statistic that sounds great, but doesn’t mean much of anything because it’s so arbitrary and goofy.
Example:
“Robert Covington is the only right-handed Philadelphia 76er since 1997 to average 1.3 steals, 6.4 rebounds, 8.2 points, and have a DBPM between 47 and 53 over his first 33 games of the season.”
Those types of tweets get a thousand likes on Twitter, but the better use of your time is to stay surface level on the statistical front, and right now the numbers show that the Sixers are the best “clutch” team in the NBA.
What does that mean, “clutch?”
It’s a period of time defined as five minutes or less in a game, with the score being within five points. So if the Sixers are leading the Celtics 96-93 with 4:15 on the clock, we’re in “clutch” time.
After Tuesday night’s win, the Sixers are now 16-5 in clutch games, with a league-best .762 winning percentage. Nobody has a better track record of executing down the stretch and closing out opponents in tight games.
Case in point, here’s a sampling of some of the clutch numbers that the Sixers are posting as a team, with their league ranks in parentheses:
- wins: 16 (tied 1st)
- winning percentage: .762 (1st)
- field goal percentage: 47.7 (6th)
- plus/minus: 52 (4th)
- offensive rating: 114.6 (8th)
- defensive rating: 88.9 (1st)
- net rating: 25.7 (2nd)
- opponent field goal percentage: 32.9 (2nd)
Defensively they’ve been incredible in these late, fourth quarter scenarios. They clamp down and get stops. They swipe the ball and block shots.
And on the offensive side, they’re shooting at a top-six clip while getting buckets from Tobias Harris and Joel Embiid on these well-executed pick and roll and isolation possessions, as you saw against New York.
Individually, here are a couple of noteworthy figures:
- Embiid has 80 total clutch points, which is 4th in the league.
- Harris has 49 clutch points, good for 23rd overall.
- Harris has a plus/minus of 69 in clutch time, which is tied for 1st in the NBA.
- Among players who have taken at least 20 clutch time shots, Harris’ 59.3 field goal percentage is second only to Damian Lillard.
- Harris hasn’t missed a single clutch time free throw. He’s 15-15 this year.
- Embiid is shooting 83.8% from the line during clutch time. His 37 free throw attempts are second in the league, also behind Lillard.
- Embiid leads the NBA with eight clutch time blocks.
- Harris has a 76.2 individual defensive rating in this time period.
- Embiid’s clutch usage is 39.5%, which is insane for a “center” in the modern day NBA.
It’s fantastic stuff all around. Not only are the Sixers executing when it matters, on both sides of the floor, but they entered the season without a true “closer” on the roster. They did not have a guy who we thought would be able to get to his spot, create his own shot, and/or take a defender off the dribble. The fact that Embiid and Harris are both viable as 1a and 1b closers has been a huge boon for this team, and something that was not expected.