This is a good explainer for some of the pick and roll stuff you’re seeing from the Sixers in this Boston series:

First things first –

When you ice a pick and roll, you’re trying to deny penetration to the middle of the floor. That means the primary defender will climb over the screen and the second (usually a big) will take an angle that pushes the ball handler towards the baseline or sideline.

In the case of the first clip, Robert Williams meets James Harden at the elbow, but Embiid is able to short roll to the nail and get into his mid-range comfort zone. Harden can throw that return pass from his stronger left hand, and it resulted in a bunch of great looks for Embiid right around the stripe, which you see on the shot plot:

James Harden explained what he saw from a floor general perspective:


“This game they played us a little different. Each game, each possession is going to be different. You’ve got to adapt and adjust to it. (Tuesday night) they were kind of clogging the paint to where Joel had his free-throw jump shot. We’ve literally seen every defense from switching, to their bigs in a deep drop, to the bigs in a closer drop. So, it’s a matter of us seeing what they’re trying to do and us countering.”

More or less. That’s been the Xs and Os topic for this series, as far as the Sixers are concerned. Doc’s offense features a lot of pick and roll and iso, so it’s not like he’s dialing up a bunch of crazy shit. There’s no fancy horns stuff or hammer action. They largely play through Embiid or let Harden facilitate from the perimeter and find a matchup he likes.

Kevin O’Connor noted on Twitter that “James Harden and Tyrese Maxey ran a combined 53 pick-and-rolls and scored an incredible 1.15 points per play tonight in Game 5,” citing Second Spectrum data. If you go into NBA Stats and look at the team tracking data, the Sixers are at 0.92 PPP via pick and roll ball handler and 1.07 via the roll man. Obviously the 1.15 number pops against those other two. Consider, also, that the Sixers are at only 0.88 PPP on iso possessions in these playoffs (bottom six) while running more iso than anyone else by a wide margin (160 total iso possessions in nine games). If they can keep cooking from the PNR, they’re going to be so much more efficient in the half court.