After two uninspiring losses to Phoenix and Utah on the road, the Sixers are 5-2 heading into tonight’s game against Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets. Brett Brown’s team will be without Ben Simmons, due to the Grade 1 AC joint sprain in his right shoulder. The team announced Simmons will be re-evaluated this weekend before the 76ers play the Hornets at home on Sunday.

Here are some early season observations and what they could mean for the big picture.

Spacing issues

Throughout the summer and preseason, there was much discussion about Al Horford and the need to increase his 3-point attempts. The good news: He has. Horford is averaging 4.9 attempts per game from deep, up from 3.0 last season in Boston.

The bad news? Horford’s 4.9 attempts are the most of any player on the Sixers. And if Al Horford is the leading 3-point shooter on your team, you’re in trouble.

The fact that Horford is out-gunning all of the Sixers’ perimeter players reflects poorly on everyone, but especially Tobias Harris. Harris is the team’s best shooter, and should lead the Sixers in 3-point attempts by a comfortable margin. And yet, he’s been passing up quality looks left and right.

So far this season, Harris is averaging 4.6 3-point attempts per 36 minutes, his lowest mark since 2016-17 in Detroit. He has taken only three 3s with a defender within 4 feet of him, per NBA.com. That mark is actually right on pace with Harris’ career track record, but it’s something that has to change, especially given the makeup of this team. If anything, Harris needs to err on the side of taking too many contested 3s.

Make no mistake, this is simply a matter of willingness to shoot. Harris does not have a slow release — in fact, he was once measured as having among the quickest releases in the league.

Harris’ reluctance isn’t the team’s only spacing issue. It’s been almost staggering how often the Sixers make things more clogged than they have to be. They are moving more off the ball when a player posts up, but too often, that’s resulted in a horrifically crowded lane. Let’s revisit this possession that Rich highlighted after the Suns game one more time because it’s just that bad:

Yuck!

Too often, capable shooters like Josh Richardson, James Ennis or Mike Scott are guilty of not spacing to the 3-point line off the ball. Even Horford has been guilty at times.

Fortunately for Brown, all of these things are correctable, and they’re likely to figure them out. These are just clunky, early season mistakes.

But a spacing issue that’s not going anywhere: Ben Simmons’ lack of shooting.

Simmons has not attempted a 3 through seven games. Don’t buy into the idea that he is just letting the game come to him or that he hasn’t had organic opportunities to shoot jump shots. There have been plenty of examples of Simmons purposely avoiding incredibly wide-open chances.

Please indulge my rant here: It is utterly absurd that, after a summer full of Instagram videos and a training camp of hype, Simmons has come out with this little willingness to shoot. Not only has Simmons shown no signs of improvement, the former No. 1 overall pick is also shooting at an even less frequent rate than in years past. Here are Simmons’ attempts from outside of 10 feet through the first seven games of each season, per NBA.com:

Forget improvement to his accuracy or form for a moment. The fact that Simmons is still this opposed to attempting shots is preposterous. We live in a world where Pistons center Andre Drummond now takes a 3 in almost every game. (Drummond’s career 3-point field goal percentage: 13.5 percent.) Andre Roberson — a defensive specialist, known for his poor shooting — attempted 184 3s in the last full season he played with the Thunder. What is holding Simmons back?

What’s even stranger is that the only shots Simmons appears willing to take are of incredibly high difficulty, such as turnaround fadeaways from the post. Calling that “trying to run before you can crawl” would be an understatement. It is a completely backwards approach to establishing a jump shot. The utility of that sort of shot is minuscule — even if Simmons were able to connect at a 40-45 percent clip (which only a handful of players can), it doesn’t hold even a fraction of the value to the Sixers’ offense of what a reliable corner 3-point shot would be worth.

Again, I don’t think enough has been made about the absurdity of this situation. Can you imagine if a role player whose jump shot needed work came out refusing to shoot 3s, but launched the type of fadeaways shown in the above clip? If Zhaire Smith arrived at training camp with that sort of habit, he’d be made a laughing stock. The fact that Simmons won’t embrace being a floor spacer and attempt corner 3s, but will toss up these Hail Marys, is concerning on multiple levels. It is a failure to recognize what will lead to the success of the team.

The hope that Simmons will one day become an average shooter, fix the Sixers’ spacing and ascend to top 10 player status is dwindling. His shooting numbers are somehow only getting worse, and the flickers of promise are becoming harder to believe in.

Thybulle: Tone it down

My long-term view on Matisse Thybulle is just as positive as it was a few weeks ago, but it’s possible that we all jumped the gun with the expectations for his rookie year. He’s really struggled the past few games and his youthful tendencies have been on display.

Thybulle is averaging 6.5 fouls per 36 minutes — past Jonah Bolden territory — and many have been grossly avoidable. Thybulle simply needs to tone down his gambling while defending on-ball. When savvy offensive players know you’re looking to swat the ball loose at all times, they’ll goad you into plenty of mistakes.

I’m all for Thybulle taking ridiculous chances off the ball. It’d be foolish to water him down in that area. But on the ball, Thybulle needs to tone down his penchant for hunting steals and blocks. NBA players are too smart and too athletically gifted for any defender to hunt steals on every possession.

Thybulle’s aggression must be cut down on the offensive end as well. He is averaging 3.9 turnovers per 36 minutes — an insane number for someone who handles the ball as little as he does. Thybulle should curtail his 3-point attempts a bit, too, considering he’s shot just 23.8 percent while taking 6.2 3s per 36 minutes. A few players who take 3s around that rate include Evan Fournier, Kevin Huerter and Joe Ingles. I’m all for Thybulle letting it fly with confidence, but he’s better off as an open corner shooter than an off-screen gunner.

Thybulle will be fine. And, in a way, you have to admire his aggression. These are simply the growing pains of an NBA rookie. But if the 22-year-old can learn on the fly to play within himself on both ends, the Sixers will be much better off.

— Archives: 76ers film breakdown

(Photo of Ben Simmons: Christian Petersen / Getty Images)