Things are getting good, huh?

It’s April 5th, about six weeks left in the regular season, and the Sixers are tied with the Nets for first place in the Eastern Conference. Doc Rivers’ team starts a four-game road trip tomorrow, then returns home for an insane slate that includes three-straight national TV games against Brooklyn, the Clippers, and Golden State, followed by a home game with the 2nd place Suns and then two on the road against the Bucks.

That’s murderer’s row right there.

We’re gonna find out a lot about this team in the coming weeks, as the games begin to matter a lot more, with Joel Embiid now back in the fold and George Hill close to a return.

Here are 10 thoughts about the Sixers’ split of a weekend:

1) Back-to-backs should never be played in the NBA. Again we had a situation where a returning player (Embiid) had to sit out on the second night of a B2B as he works his way back from injury. The games are sloppy, the product suffers, and we miss out on watching stars play because the NBA has to crunch so many games into the schedule. It’s ridiculous and it benefits the money makers to the detriment of the players and fans.

Said Rivers on the Memphis loss:

“I did think the first unit started out the game with great energy, and then the second unit came in and struggled. Unfortunately, once that happened, once we got down, we didn’t have it. I made the decision early to get our guys off the floor. I wanted Furk (Furkan Korkmaz) and Shake (Milton) to play a little bit to try to get some rhythm, but it was good to see the young guys come out and play hard and aggressive. That’s what they should do, and they did.”

2) Embiid went for 24 and eight coming back from that 10-game layoff, which is great. He shot 6-14 from the field and ironically the rust seemed to show at the foul line, where he shot 12-17. However, the fact that he got to the line 17 times was incredible, considering the fact that the Sixers played three games in his absence where the entire team didn’t shoot 17 free throws.

3) Still need Seth Curry to shoot more. He took 16 shots this weekend and is averaging just 10 field goals per game while playing a career-high 29.1 minutes per. Also, too many long two pointers. He’s one of the best three point shooters in the game and needs to pull the trigger coming off screens and DHOs, because too many times he’ll take that extra dribble and step into a shot that isn’t as good as the one he just passed up.

Here’s his season shot chart, and the blue areas I circled are what he needs to eliminate from his game:

Not only does he take too many shots from those areas, but he’s well below league average.

I’d have to go through and watch his entire shot reel for evidence, but I have a strong presumption that a lot of those long twos could have been threes instead. It’s frustrating to watch a sniper shoot long twos.

4) Ben Simmons.. where to start? He doesn’t have to be a scorer, not when Tobias Harris and Embiid are on the floor together. And not when Danny Green and Curry are hitting their shots. But that doesn’t mean his ability to get the rack shouldn’t be featured when those aforementioned criteria aren’t in play, and on Sunday night they could have used more assertiveness from him. Instead, he finished with 7 points on 2-6 shooting and hit only 50% of his free throws. At full strength, it’s no issue, but the bottom line is that Simmons’ offensive game has improved only marginally from his rookie season.

Rivers, for what it’s worth, has been very consistent this season saying that the fans and media blow the Simmons offensive game/jump shot topic out of proportion, and added this Sunday:

“I think Ben’s a facilitator. I think that’s what he does. I thought he did a great early on, and after that, I thought I thought they all got tired. As the game went on, less and less driving happened. I think you guys are way more concerned about him scoring than I am.”

Yeah? Well that’s great, and I don’t disagree. But we’ve also watched Ben Simmons go off for 42 points and knock down 10-straight threes in warmups, so we know there’s more to his game when he’s feeling confident and assertive.

5) Embiid shot four three pointers on Saturday, which is above his season average (a number that has dropped this year). I’m sure this had something to do with feeling his way back to the floor. On a perfect night, he shoots maybe two three pointers, while Curry and Green shoot nothing but threes. Again, the balance has to be overcorrected by those guys, because between Embiid/Simmons/Harris, you’re not getting enough three-point shooting to make this team analytically logical.

6) Dwight Howard hasn’t been ejected in the past few games, so that’s good. I know Rivers likes to keep him with the second unit, but starting him against Jonas Valanciunas instead of playing small ball with Mike Scott may have been a better choice, in hindsight.

7) The Sixers need to shoot better at the line. They log the second-most free throw attempts per game, but only hit 77% once they get to the line, which is 17th. The disparity here is really poor, and over the past 12 games they’ve only been above 80% once.

8) Shake Milton is looking more like himself. 14 points Saturday, 14 points Sunday, a 10-23 shooting weekend, 2-6 from three, 6-6 from the line and just one turnover.

9) Harris is shooting 66% from the field over his last three games, averaging 21.7 points and shooting 92.3% from the foul line. He’s currently part of the elite and very exclusive 50/40/90 club, which means he’s shooting 50% from the floor, 40% from three, and 90% from the line (technically he’s 89.9% from the line, but we’ll count it). Less than 10 players have ever finished a season with those numbers, and we’re talking guys like Larry Bird, Steve Nash, and Reggie Miller. And in the WNBA, it’s only been done once, by Delaware’s Elena Delle Donne. Just goes to show how rare it is.

10) Paul Reed is showing some nice flashes as a cutter and offensive rebounder. Multiple times Sunday night he put himself in strong weakside positions, slashed at the right time, or just bodied his way to the glass for buckets. When you see the things he does and compare it to what Tony Bradley was doing over the last few weeks, you understand why Bradley was expendable at the trade deadline.