The Sixer Sense
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Do the Philadelphia 76ers struggle to keep big leads?

By Michael Bronson

LONDON, ENGLAND - JANUARY 11: T.J. McConnell #12 of the Philadelphia 76ers takes on Terry Rozier #12 of the Boston Celtics during the NBA game between Boston Celtics and Philadelphia 76ers at The O2 Arena on January 11, 2018 in London, England. (Photo by Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)
LONDON, ENGLAND - JANUARY 11: T.J. McConnell #12 of the Philadelphia 76ers takes on Terry Rozier #12 of the Boston Celtics during the NBA game between Boston Celtics and Philadelphia 76ers at The O2 Arena on January 11, 2018 in London, England. (Photo by Justin Setterfield/Getty Images) /
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Through 40 games the Philadelphia 76ers seem to have a tendency to jump out to a big leads in the first half and quickly give them up in the second half. Is that overblown, or a legitimate concern?

When the Philadelphia 76ers jumped to a 55-41 lead over the Toronto Raptors with 1:33 left in the second quarter on MLK Day, I felt no excitement. I said to myself, “can’t wait to see how they give up this lead.”

While the Sixers did manage to extend their lead to 20 points during the third quarter, they ultimately ended winning the game by six points and that game could’ve went either way with less than five minutes remaining in the fourth quarter.

One could argue that being worried about the Sixers’ ability to maintain a lead should be viewed as a privilege for a fan base that got use to seeing their team get blown out for several seasons while waiting for “The Process” to run its coarse, but that’s severely underrating the talent the 2017-18 Sixers have.

This is a team with a top ten player in Joel Embiid, a rookie that is already playing at an All-Star level in Ben Simmons, one of the best examples of a 3-and-D player in Robert Covington, and solid role players in J.J. Redick, Dario Saric, and T.J. McConnell.

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The fact that they have entered halftime with at least a 10-point lead in 13 of their 41 games and six of the 10 teams in those games had winning records shows the potential this roster has. And to my surprise, the Sixers won 10 of the 13 games they entered halftime with a double-digit lead. So if the view that no lead is safe with the Sixers is a figment of my imagination, where did that fear come from?

A lot of that fear probably comes from the Sixers’ underperforming bench. The Sixers’ bench rank 26th in points per game with 27.5 points, 22nd in rebounds per game with 14.9 rebounds, and 16th in assists per game with 7.7 assists. When comparing the Sixers’ bench stats to the team’s overall all stats, it become clear that the Sixers have a serious bench problem.

Overall the Sixers rank seventh in points per game with 108.6 points, first in rebounds per game with 47.6 rebounds, and third in assists per game with 26 assists. Bench play this bad can’t simply be explained away by saying, “of course the Sixers play worse when Embiid or Simmons is on the bench,” because the Embiid and Simmons are not on the bench long enough for the stats difference to be this bad.

There are 48 minutes in an NBA game and on average Embiid plays in 31.3 minutes and Simmons plays in 35.1 minutes. The Sixers’ other starters Redick (32.6), Covington (32.3), and Saric (30.5) play enough to minutes to suggest that coach Brett Brown knows his bench has serious issues and wants to keep them out of the game as long as possible.

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The Philadelphia 76ers clearly have a playoff caliber starting lineup and are good at holding onto big leads, but with the NBA trade deadline (February 8, at 3pm ET) happening in about three weeks, the Sixers need to make a deal to improve their disappointing bench.