Brett Brown Believes Being a Top-15 Defensive Team Means Playoffs
By Josh Wilson
Philadelphia 76ers head coach Brett Brown said on The Vertical Podcast With Woj that he feels like a top 15 defense is playoff material.
For the second time this season, Adrian Wojnarowski of The Vertical had Philadelphia 76ers head coach Brett Brown on his podcast to talk about all things basketball.
Within that podcast, which was recorded on the Sunday going into the final week of the season, Brown and Woj covered a lot of things, but really focused on the most recent season the Sixers went through, and how much of an improvement it was compared to the previous several seasons.
One of the things Brown talked about was his age (56 years old) and how that has really helped him do his job effectively. He said that the whole patience mindset that he operates with — and implores on his players — is because of the perspective he has given all of the experiences he has gone through in the league. He mentioned that if he had had this job 10 or 15 years ago, he isn’t sure if he would have done well with it.
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"“I feel like perspective and judgement, and a true semblance on what the word patience means, is clearer to me. I’m not concerned about my record. I’m not concerned how I will be judged.”"
Brown also revealed something to Woj that was interesting about his mindset going into the season. He said the only thing he and the team ever quantified was their defense, and that they have a goal of being a top-15 defensive team in the NBA, because Brown believes with that metric comes a mindset that is of playoff caliber. For a team that seems to pride themselves on thinking analytically, at least to some extent, this is intriguing that they only ever quantified one thing.
"“All I ever quantified was to be a top 15 defensive team in the NBA. And I selected that number because really what it meant is that that is a playoff mentality.”"
Looking at the rankings at the end of this season, the Sixers sit right at the 15th spot in defensive rating, 21st in opponent field goal percentage, 14th in 3-point percentage, but 24th overall in opponent points allowed. This is better than last year, when the Sixers were 29th overall in points allowed.
Being a top 15 defense is hard to do, but the Sixers were able to get themselves up to that point at certain times this season. In the month of January, the Sixers were 10th in points allowed, 9th in opponent field goal percentage, and 18th in opponent 3-point percentage (largely because a lot of their great defense was at the rim by Joel Embiid). They had the fourth best defensive rating in that month of the season.
Much of this can be attributed to Joel Embiid and his incredible defense and rim protecting this season, as well as his overall emergence in his rookie year. But moving forward, the Sixers do have some pieces that are pretty good on defense outside of Embiid, including Dario Saric, T.J. McConnell, and Robert Covington.
Brown did attribute some of the defensive positives to Embed in the interview with Woj.
"“When you judge Joel Embiid, you went to a complete other level defensively.”"
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Without a doubt, one of the big areas of emphasis the Sixers have put on their young players is defense. In a league that has become recently increasingly infatuated with high-powered offenses and 3-point shots, the Sixers look to counter that, while also having some decent offensive tricks up their sleeve as well.