Ben Simmons left Wednesday night’s game with an minor AC joint sprain in his right shoulder, an injury picked up while attempting to back down a Utah Jazz player in the first half of the eventual two-point loss. He’ll be reevaluated today in Denver ahead of tomorrow night’s matchup with the Nuggets.

The Sixers have enough firepower to win when one of their stars is unavailable to play, but they just didn’t inspire offensively last night, shooting 41.2% from the field and 32% from three while looking casual and deferential at times. 16 of Joel Embiid’s 27 points came at the foul line while Al Horford struggled to get anything to fall and Tobias Harris only took one three point shot on the entire night.

Sprinkle in difficulties defending the pick and roll, plus a bad turnover from Josh Richardson late in the fourth quarter, and that’s a recipe for losing a game that they were more than capable of winning.

Adventures in pick and roll defense

The Sixers typically play drop coverage against the pick and roll in an effort to push opponents off the three point line and invite mid-range shots. It can be frustrating to watch sometimes, because while analytically the mid-range jumper is the least efficient shot in basketball, the Sixers essentially concede the look entirely.

You’re typically willing to live and die by those shots, and last night there was a lot of this on the floor:

That’s pretty typical pick and roll defense. Raul Neto is going over the screen to prevent the three-point shot, and Embiid will sit right around the elbow area, which invites Mike Conley to pull up for a clean look. Drop coverage works best when whomever is playing Neto’s position is able to stay in the play and make the ball handler uncomfortable from behind, which involves just getting a body on him or throwing a rear contest.

Here’s what happens if the big, in this case Horford, steps up too high:

Again it’s Neto over the top, but when Horford steps up to address the ball handler, Donovan Mitchell is able to just get Tony Bradley on the roll to the rim. You’d rather have Mitchell shoot the jumper there, since it’s lower percentage (even if he was hitting them early).

Finally, this was the shot that pretty much won it for Utah. The Sixers go to trap here, which means the screener’s defender is going to just attack the ball handler instead of dropping back. They did this a bit with JJ Redick in the playoffs (actually more of a soft hedge and recover), but this is a perfect counter from Bojan Bogdanovic:

When you sense a hedge, trap, or blitz coming, shooters can simply slip the screen instead and flare to the three-point line for an open shot. Somebody blew something here though, because Neto didn’t slide with Bogdanovic and nobody was close to a helpful rotation. Looks like they were not on the same page.

Al Horford

Fantastic performance in Phoenix, which was wasted by the Sixers.

But last night he just could not get anything to fall, and it was mostly stuff that he’s able to convert right around the rim this year:

2-8 inside the paint for Horford last night, which you’re not gonna see a lot of this year. He had an off night.

Ancillary losses

The Sixers typically do well in absolutely destroying teams in auxiliary areas, but last night they finished with:

44 points in the paint

10 second chance points

9 fast break points

7 offensive rebounds

All four were below their season average. They were out-shot 89 to 80, which is the largest disparity they’ve faced in this department in 2019. The Sixers were #1 in field goal attempts per game after starting 5-0 and have now dropped to 12th overall.

Other notes: