5 improvements the Sixers need to make for a playoff run

The Philadelphia 76ers have the potential to make a playoff run, but they need to make some improvements to be true contenders in the East.

Call me unrealistic. Tell me I’m getting ahead of myself. I don’t care. The Sixers have a chance to make it out of the Eastern Conference.

Will they? Probably not; they’re certainly not the favorite. But you won’t convince me it isn’t possible. They just beat Cleveland. Boston hasn’t been as dominant as they were to start the season. And Toronto has been extraordinarily dreadful in the playoffs the last few years.

There isn’t a single team that’s untouchable in the East, and the Sixers, alone in sixth, sit just 1.5 games back of the three seed. Not to mention there’s this:

I’m not saying it will happen; I’m just not saying it can’t.

At the very least, the Sixers are good enough to win one series. That would go a long way in proving to Lebron James prospective free agents that Philly is ready to contend. But in all likelihood, this team isn’t quite ready to make a finals run.

That being said, if the Sixers can make these five improvement heading into the playoffs, they’ll have to be considered legitimate contenders in the East.

1. Staying aggressive with a lead

The Sixers have blown a whopping six 15-point leads this season.

When leading, they too often hold the ball until late in the shot clock, resulting in heavily contested misses once they’re finally forced to shoot. When the Sixers are ahead, they need to continue to push the ball down the floor and find quality shots early.

This might seem like nitpicking, as the team is already fifth in the NBA in pace, according to NBA.com. But when they hold the ball for too long with the lead, they lose the advantage they created by getting out and running.

According to 82games.com, the Sixers have a higher Effective Field Goal Percentage when they shoot within the first ten seconds of the shot clock. They shoot significantly worse when they take shots in the last eight seconds.

Even when the Sixers don’t have numbers, they find success pushing the ball down the floor. Just watch Ben Simmons on this play from Thursday night’s win in Cleveland.

19 seconds. That’s how much time was on the clock when Dario Saric took a wide open three. Off of a made basket.

The play starts with Simmons receiving the inbounds pass and sprinting down the court after the make. The Cavs’ defense doesn’t have time to set up, and Simmons puts them on their heels. At 6-10, when Simmons gets a full head of steam, another defender has to help.

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Saric, the inbounder, trailed the play, and when his man helped onto Simmons, he was left wide open. The play was reminiscent of Villanova’s 2016 championship-winning buzzer beater.

When the Sixers push the ball down the floor, even if it’s not a fast-break situation, good things tend to happen. Often times it results in an open three or a layup off of a strong cut to the basket.

Every game is crucial in the playoffs, and the Sixers can’t afford to give away a game by blowing another lead. If they can maintain their aggressiveness when ahead, they’ll find more efficient shots and avoid the scoreless spells that result in opponent comebacks.

2. Defending quicker guards

Overall, defense has been a major strength for the Sixers. They’re fourth in the NBA in defensive rating, according to NBA.com, and they’re anchored by Joel Embiid‘s unmatched presence at the rim.

But Embiid isn’t the only reason for their defensive success. On the perimeter, Ben Simmons and Robert Covington have developed into two of the league’s best defenders. They’re able to use their heights (6-10 and 6-9, respectively) to disrupt passing lanes and switch onto any player on the court.

One place the Sixers defenders have struggled, however, is containing smaller, quicker guards. For a perfect example of this, look no further than Friday night’s game.

Kemba Walker, the Hornet’s 6-1 All-Star point guard, was able to post 31 points and lead his team to a 14 point advantage late into the third quarter. The Sixers love to switch screens, but against quick, crafty guards, this can lead to bad mismatches. Watch here as Dario Saric has to try to contain Walker.

After getting baited and blown by the first time, Saric sags off Walker, who easily knocks down the open jumper.

Asking Saric to guard someone so much smaller and quicker just isn’t fair. And the Sixers will have to figure out how to better handle players like Walker in the future.

In the playoffs, they’ll be charged with the task of covering point guards like John Wall and Kyrie Irving, two of the quickest players in the NBA. Look for the Sixers to use traps and hedges to avoid switching slower players onto the league’s top ball handlers.

3. Shooting consistency

Finding consistency from beyond the arc has been an issue all year for the Sixers.

Robert Covington started the season on fire, sinking 50% of his looks from beyond the arc. He’s cooled off significantly since then, though, all the way down to 36.5%, just below the league average. J.J. Redick leads the team at 40.1 percent, but that’s still his worst rate over the last four years.

Covington’s shooting has been especially concerning when you examine his decline by month.

Luckily for the Sixers, these aren’t their only two capable three point shooters. Dario Saric is shooting 38 percent from deep, by far the best percentage he’s shot at any level of basketball. T.J. McConnell, on just one attempt per game, is converting at a 47.2 percent clip. New signing Marco Belinelli has made 37.2 percent this year.

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The Sixers as a team are around average from three at 36.3 percent, according to NBA.com. They certainly haven’y been bad, and they have a lot of players who can knock down a shot from beyond.

Even on poor shooting nights, the Sixers have shown they have enough talent to beat good teams. Against Cleveland on Thursday, they only went 10-30 on threes and still managed to beat LeBron James on the road. They’re able to lean on their elite defense each night to keep them in the game.

But Redick and Covington are both starters, and they attempt more threes per game than anyone else on the team. If they could get hot and play up to their full potentials, the Sixers will be very difficult to beat in the playoffs.

4. Better bench play

The Sixers starting lineup boasts one of the best net ratings of any five-man group in the NBA. The bench is a whole different story. Brett Brown‘s squad has been beaten badly when the second unit is in.

Struggles on the bench have stemmed from two main issues:

1. Without Joel Embiid on the floor, the defense is significantly worse
2. The bench doesn’t have anyone capable of scoring points

While the bench defense doesn’t figure to improve much, the Sixers reserves should get a boost in scoring to end the season.

In February, the Sixers signed Hawks’ buyouts Marco Belinelli and Ersan Ilyasova. Both have proven to be able scorers thus far, and they’ve helped keep the Sixers in games while the starters get a breather.

A continued improvement in bench scoring would be big for the Sixers come playoff time. However, there’s another problem the Sixers need to solve concerning the bench: finding a regular rotation.

Belinelli seems to have found a spot in the regular rotation. The same can be said about McConnell and Ilyasova, two of the league’s most pesty defenders.

After those three, the bench has a lot of uncertainty.

Since the recent additions, Richaun Holmes, Amir Johnson, and Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot have all gotten irregular minutes. Jerryd Bayless, a regular rotation player earlier in the season, hasn’t played at all. The situation would become even more complicated should Markelle Fultz return this year.

In order to succeed in the playoffs, the Sixers will have to figure out the best way to get the most out of their bench before the season ends.

5. Cutting turnovers

The Sixers having turnover issues was inevitable coming into the season. Their starting point guard is a rookie, and their leading scorer only played 32 games before this year. Having high usage players with so little experience is a recipe for a high turnover rate.

The Sixers rank dead last in the NBA in turnovers per game and turnover percentage, according to NBA.com, and neither is particularly close. On the year, Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons average 3.8 and 3.6 turnovers, respectively.

Interestingly, according to 82games.com, the Sixers have actually committed fewer turnovers off of bad passes than their opponents. Instead, the large majority of their give-aways have come from ball handling errors.

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This shows that the Sixers could find success cutting down on turnovers by making smarter decisions involving dribbling and driving into traffic.

On Thursday against the Cavs, they did just that. Embiid and Simmons only had two turnovers each, and the entire team only had ten.

When asked after the game, The Process saw even more room for improvement.

On the second half of the back-to-back, the Sixers once again took care of the ball with just 11 turnovers against Charlotte.

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In the playoffs, the Sixers won’t be able to turn the ball over 20 times and beat the league’s top teams. They’ll need to improve their ball security to have any chance of going on a deep run.