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On Rebounding, LeBron James Says Sixers Must Grab the Basketball Out of the Air
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The Sixers will have to settle for 81-1 after losing their first game of the season on Sunday night, falling at home to the Pistons by a 106-93 scoreline.
They made it a game in the second half but Detroit had an answer for everything. Credit to those guys. They were good. They out-rebounded the Sixers 54 to 37 and grabbed 15 off the offensive glass, which had LeBron James quoting Taurean Prince in the locker room:
Nobody will press the panic button after the Sixers lost without Joel Embiid and VJ Edgecombe. They were the the top two rebounders through three games, averaging 9.7 and 8 per game, respectively. There will be moments like this during the season where the Sixers will be shorthanded and/or navigating back-to-backs while managing Joel and LeBron’s minutes.
But you do see a couple of premortem items here.
Ariel Hukporti was supposed to be the backup 5 this season. Adem Bona has had his moments, but watching him play extended minutes is like watching a train wobble back and forth on the tracks. He had 6 points and 13 rebounds against Detroit while blocking three shots but also turned the ball over three times. Jabari Walker wasn’t available for the 4-5 minutes of small ball five he played in the first couple of games, and LeBron confirmed what we already knew – that he’s not going to be a consistently reliable option at the five:
“We got an MVP over there (nodding toward Embiid’s locker). I’m not here to have a sustainable role at the five when you’ve got Joel Embiid on the team. I don’t see it being a sustainable role but it’s a role we know we can tap into if we need. I know I can play one through five offensively and defensively, if need be. But sustainable role of playing the five, if I was to say I was signing here to have a sustainable role at the way, I don’t think any of us would actually want that.”
The Sixers haven’t put together four decent quarters of basketball this year, and they are 3-1. They’ve been incredible in these second halves, but obviously they’re going to have to commit to defending and rebounding early in order to be successful.
As it stands, they actually have a 78.9 defensive rebounding percentage, which is 5th-best in the league. The offensive rebounding number is 21.1%, which is fifth worst, and their total rebounding differential is -49, which is also worst in the league, and by a large margin, though they’ve played four games so far.
Broken into quarters, it looks like you would expect:
- 1st Quarter: 62.0% DREB%, 14.9% OREB%, 39.2% REB%
- 2nd Quarter: 64.4% DREB%, 17.6% OREB%, 39.6% REB%
- 3rd Quarter: 81.4% DREB%, 17.0% OREB%, 47.8% REB%
- 4th Quarter: 73.5% DREB%, 22.4% OREB%, 48.0% REB%
It gets better as the game goes on, obviously, they just need to lock in earlier to avoid these big deficits.
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com