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The Philadelphia 76ers used a strategic zone defense to turn the tide on Monday night. It flummoxed Atlanta in short spurts, helping the Sixers overcome a 16-point deficit and forcing the Hawks into thinking twice about going inside the paint. It seemed to work wonders and head coach Doc Rivers loved it.
“We loved it. We loved it,” Rivers said. “They were killing our man [defense early. And you just need to go to that to get them out of rhythm.”
After the game – a 104-101 win for Philadelphia – Rivers told reporters that the team practiced the zone every day. It hasn’t quite progressed to where he wants it to be, but it’s getting close to a finished product. Great news, right? One problem, one of his star players, Tobias Harris, refuted how effective their zone defense was. And how often they worked on it in practice.
“Not that much. Honestly, we haven’t practiced zone that much, and they were able to make a lot of shots,” Harris said. “Zone is cool if you’re in it and they miss like the first two [shots], then you start thinking about the next one. We got in it, and they made two in a row, and were able to find some open shots out there.”
It was weird to hear such strangely differing opinions on the momentum-shifting moment. Maybe Harris was strictly looking at the box score, which showed the Hawks shot 50% from the field. In reality, the zone did impact the pace of play as Trae Young and Dejounte Murray combined to shoot 12-for-27. Atlanta also turned the ball over 20 times.
“Zones are great because guys can get some rest and still be out on the floor and play offense,” Rivers said. “It’s funny when you look at it, teams have one or two zone offenses, right? They have 15, 30, 40 man plays, and so we just felt like it was easy to scout their zone offense more than their man offense.”
Tobias Harris Credits ‘Focus Level’ for Huge Win
Tobias Harris was brilliant against Atlanta, no matter his thoughts on the zone. He scored 24 points (10-of-18) along with grabbing 10 rebounds in 36 minutes. He was great on ball swings and had the mid-range floater going when the defense sagged.
His biggest highlight came on a 27-foot triple that he hit falling away as the shot clock was winding down. It put the Sixers up 89-88 with 9:09 left in the fourth quarter. The surprise shot ignited the hometown crowd.
“It’s focus level. We kept coming to the huddles and we kept our energy positive throughout those times,” Harris said. “We knew, we don’t have it right now. We just keep fighting, we keep going, we’re going to find it, we’re going to get into a flow.
“We’re going to have energy plays that pick our crowd up, things like that. In this game, it’s a game of runs and there are ups and downs during the course of the game, but I thought when we were able to find our momentum, and we kept going with that, and we were running with that.”
Everyone Happy to See Joel Embiid the Playmaker
Joel Embiid scored 30 points in his first game back from a foot injury. His presence lifted the entire team up – emotionally, physically, mentally. Embiid also dished out seven assists as he continued his stated goal of being more of a playmaker for his teammates.
“He was great. Obviously just his presence and his dominance is huge for our whole group,” Harris said. “And I thought, really, he did a great job of just involving everybody and getting seven assists is huge. Just his ability to take over games, especially in the fourth quarter is big for us and he just did awesome, and we were excited to have him back.”
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