Teamwork A Clear Aspect Of Sixers’ First Win

The Philadelphia 76ers win, the Sixers win! That’s right, the Sixers went out and got a lot of firsts last night. Their first win of the (pre)season, the first win on the new hardwood, and the first win in the new jerseys. Oh, and the first win for big man rookie Jahlil Okafor.

Okafor was one of the bright spots in the first game (which ended up being a blowout loss against the Washington Wizards), but was seemingly absent in the second one, according to a lot of opinion. Let’s take a different look at the numbers, though.

In the first game, Okafor shot 60%, had two blocks and two rebounds, alongside 12 points. He had 12 points again on Thursday, but shot at 33%, with three rebounds and no blocks. All of this came with three more minutes.

Okafor also shut some doubters up about his free throws, hitting four of the five he attempted.

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These numbers look bad compared to Tuesday night’s game, but Okafor got a lot more help from his teammates. On Tuesday night, the Sixers had just three players in double digit points, which was part of the reason they couldn’t keep up with the Wizards high pace. On Thursday night, they had five players in double digit points, and one player (Hollis Thompson) that was within one point of being the sixth player in double digit points.

I don’t see a problem here. I would much rather have Okafor play like this all season if it means more players will be getting involved offensively. Jahlil Okafor accounted for 12.6% of the Sixers points against the Wizards, and fell to just 8.3% on Thursday due to getting more players involved.

Why have a team that depends on one player doing well to win? Having a team that shares the ball, moves things around, and gives chances to score to everyone is much harder to defend than one that goes straight to the paint and gives the ball to Okafor.

Additionally, we can see in this game that the starters were not relied on a whole lot by the teams. Statistically, they were still a large part of the game, but the bench players were expected to show up here.

No starter had a postive +/- for the Sixers on Thursday (Okafor had a -8, the second worst of the starting five). On the bench, however, five out of nine players were in the positive. Jerami Grant ran with the starters a lot (25 minutes of play, 19 points) but came off of the bench. His +/- shows he was around the starters, with a -1.

All but one (Richaun Holmes) of the Sixers 14 playing players scored, and all but one (J.P. Tokoto) had at least one rebound, and as a team, they shot 45% from the field.

60% of the teams made field goals were assisted.

The Cavs–although they didn’t rely as much on the bench as Philly–had some bench help, with Jared Cunningham scoring 31 points, a game high.

I’m encouraged by the balance of points around the team from the Cavs win on Thursday night. If they can keep ball movement going like this, and get more and more players involved in every game, they could be setting themselves up for much more than the 20 wins or so most people are projecting for them.

Next: Pierre Jackson: Missing Another Season Could Be Likely

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