The Philadelphia 76ers Are Finally Hitting The Outside Shot

After some incredibly awful 3-point shooting during the first half of this season, the Philadelphia 76ers are finally hitting shots from beyond the arc.

The Philadelphia 76ers have an endless array of weaknesses that analysts can critique, but one of the most evident problem was their lack of a consistent shooter. Coming into this season it seemed like creating space for Jahlil Okafor down in the low-post would be a problem considering the Sixers best effort at acquiring an outside shooter was picking up guard Nik Stauskas in a trade with Sacramento, even though Stauskas shot a subpar 32 percent from the behind the arc. For most of the season this has been true, shooting just 33 percent from behind the 3-point line ranking them at a measly 26th in the league.

All of that seems to be changing recently. In the last ten games (with the most recent one being the loss to the Atlanta Hawks), the Sixers have shot 36.5% percent from three and are shooting 42.9 percent from deep in their three victories throughout the same span. A lot of this could be credited to the recent improvement in ball movement and pace of the offense since the on-boarding of key offensive pieces like point guard Ish Smith and assistant coach Mike D’Antoni. The rise in confidence from the team’s key shooters also seems to be a factor.

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Stauskas, Isaiah Canaan, Hollis Thompson, and Robert Covington came into the season carrying the load of outside shooting, and they’re starting to show they can handle the job. All four players have improved on their season averages, with Canaan being the hottest, hitting half of his outside shots.

This kind of shooting has allowed the Sixers to efficiently move the ball in transition as well as to give Okafor options to pass out of the post. It also allows Okafor to avoid double teams, which have been decreasing as shooting has improved and offensive focus has shifted from Okafor as the primary facilitator out of the post to Smith running as a traditional point guard. Throughout this 3-point hot streak, Okafor has benefited from the spacing. Although his minutes and offensive output has decreased in this time, his field-goal percentage has been an outstanding 59.2 percent and fellow big man Nerlens Noel has racked up a ridiculous 64.9 percent from the field.

The shooters have opened up the offense for head coach Brett Brown, who’s motto of “pace and space” has been more apparent in these last ten games. Creating a more balanced offense to allow Noel and Okafor an easier time in the post is important for both development reasons and production reasons. This streak also allows general manager Sam Hinkie to assess what works and what doesn’t when it comes to player personnel and building around certain players, which could be important as we are on the horizon of trade season and inching towards the lottery.

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The Sixers main priority this offseason is to gain promising perimeter threats however they can. Drafting anything but decent outside shooters in the first round will continue to hold back this team’s offensive mold (excluding Ben Simmons, of course). There have been sprinkled moments of efficiency in Brown’s offense when players are hitting their shots, and hopefully this streak from the team’s core shooters continue for an extended amount of time.