{"id":912337,"date":"2026-10-01T14:38:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T14:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/912337\/"},"modified":"2026-10-01T14:38:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T14:38:12","slug":"could-concerns-about-the-sixers-defense-be-vastly-overstated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/912337\/","title":{"rendered":"Could concerns about the Sixers\u2019 defense be vastly overstated?"},"content":{"rendered":"

During Nick Nurse\u2019s first three years in Philadelphia, the Sixers\u2019 defense has mostly been\u2026 fine? They were 11th leaguewide<\/a> in defensive rating in 2023-24, fell to 26th<\/a> during their injury-ravaged 2024-25 campaign and bounced back up to 17th<\/a> last year.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a far cry from what the Toronto Raptors pulled off in Nurse\u2019s first two years at the helm. They were fifth leaguewide in defensive rating<\/a> during their championship season in 2018-19 and second the following year.<\/a><\/p>\n

Granted, Nurse had an incredible array of defensive personnel during those seasons up north. Kyle Lowry was the point-of-attack defender, Kawhi Leonard and OG Anunoby locked down opposing wings, and Pascal Siakam and Marc Gasol manned the frontcourt. There wasn\u2019t a defensive weak link to be found among them.<\/p>\n

The 2026-27 Sixers might not have the same type of defensive ceiling as those late-2010s Raptors. After all, LeBron James is turning 42 in December, while knee injuries have sapped Joel Embiid of the athleticism and mobility that he had when he was younger.<\/p>\n

But personnel-wise, the defensive concerns about this year\u2019s squad<\/a> might be vastly overstated.<\/p>\n

\u201cRecently, I don\u2019t feel like I\u2019ve been able to get into my bag of defensive stuff nearly as much as I would like to,\u201d Nurse told reporters after training camp<\/a> Wednesday after PHLY Sports\u2019 Kyle Neubeck asked him what might be the biggest change from previous years\u2019 Sixers teams. \u201cI think now we\u2019ve got a little bit more depth, size, athleticism. And it may take us a minute, but I think I\u2019m most excited about that.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we just have the capabilities to understand it, execute it, change on the fly, do multiple things, even if it\u2019s once or twice, and get back to normal. All that kind of stuff, that would probably be the biggest (change).\u201d<\/p>\n

Most of the concerns about the Sixers defense revolve around James, whose effort has waxed and waned on that end of the floor during the regular season in recent years, and Embiid, who hasn\u2019t been in the Defensive Player of the Year mix since 2022-23. VJ Edgecombe and Jaylen Brown are plus defenders, and Tyrese Maxey has improved on defense since entering the league, but can LeBron and Embiid hold up their end of the bargain?<\/p>\n

Edgecombe made it clear Tuesday that he isn\u2019t afraid to correct James despite the experience gap between them.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I\u2019m myself,\u201d he told reporters. \u201cI\u2019m myself. I told him, I was like, I mean, like, if we have a possession, so I\u2019d be like, \u2018Yo, Bron, we\u2019ve got to switch that. We got to do it, you know what I\u2019m saying?\u2019 Like, whoever, we are holding each other accountable. I said, \u2018We\u2019re teammates now, man.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

During the season premiere of Mind the Game<\/a>, LeBron made clear that accountability will be the key to the Sixers having an above-average defense this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been able to be on some really good defensive teams in my career,\u201d he said. \u201cDefense always comes down to the first thing, pride. It\u2019s a pride thing. I\u2019m not going to allow my guy to continue to exploit me or beat me or whatever the case may be. There has to be some kind of pride in the sense of that.<\/p>\n

\u201dAnd at the end of the day, the best defense never stops the best offense anyways, and that\u2019s OK. But if we can make teams uncomfortable, if we can make teams turn the ball over, if we can make teams not be in a rhythm like they\u2019re accustomed to be in a rhythm versus other teams, then it gives us another opportunity. It gives us more possessions. We want to try to win the possession game.<\/p>\n

\u201dAnd I think with Coach Nurse and the things that I\u2019ve seen with his teams in the past, especially the [2018-19] Raptors team that won a championship, that\u2019s what they did. They got up into you, they got into the passing lane. If you got around one guy, there\u2019s another guy helping you. Obviously with OG and Pascal and Kyle, Marc Gasol being on that team, there was a lot of high-IQ guys as well to be able to do that. And I\u2019m looking forward to seeing if we can kind of translate a little bit of that as well.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Cause we have the speed. We have the athleticism. Now it\u2019s about do we have the discipline to actually be able to take that on the defensive end and hold each other accountable, too. \u2018Cause that\u2019s what it\u2019s about. You\u2019ve gotta force guys into contested twos. Try not to give up straight-line drives. Don\u2019t give up corner threes. And then we\u2019ve gotta rebound. As fast and athletic as we can be, we can\u2019t do shit if we don\u2019t get the rebound.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rebounding has not been a strong suit of the Sixers under Nurse. They\u2019ve been in the bottom third of the league in rebounding percentage in each of his three seasons. Losing Andre Drummond in free agency this past summer likely won\u2019t help in that regard, either.<\/p>\n

But to Nurse\u2019s point, the Sixers now have more size to throw at opponents, even if their depth chart at center behind Embiid still looks iffy for now<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Not only did they add the 6\u20199\u201d James and the 6\u20196\u201d Brown, whom Maxey called a \u201cfreak of nature\u201d at training camp on Wednesday<\/a>, but they also added 6\u20199\u201d forward Dean Wade and 7\u20190\u201d center Ariel Hukporti. Wade made a name for himself in Cleveland with his defensive acumen, and he was the early favorite to start at power forward for the Sixers this year until they landed LeBron. Having him and Dominick Barlow coming off the bench will be a major defensive upgrade over what they trotted out last year.<\/p>\n

Given how many new pieces they have to integrate this season, it could take time for the Sixers to hit their stride defensively. Nurse alluded as much Wednesday. They might not have a top-10 defensive rating during the regular season, particularly if Embiid misses significant time.<\/p>\n

But as LeBron pointed out at media day, the amount of sacrifice that the starters will have to make this year could have positive trickle-down effects for the Sixers\u2019 defense.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes in sports, people hear sacrifice, you automatically, people start thinking negatively about it,\u201d LeBron said<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s not a negative thing. You sacrifice one or two more shots, that gives you one or two more bursts of energy in the fourth quarter to slide over and take a charge, or give you one or two more bursts of energy to get an offensive rebound for an extra possession to kick out for a teammate or an extra two bursts of energy to run back on defense and get a chase-down block. Some things that don\u2019t show up in the box scores.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it\u2019s not a negative when people say, OK, you have to make a sacrifice or your role may change. If we\u2019re trying to do something special, which I believe we are, then that\u2019s a positive.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s time for Nurse to tap back into his mad-scientist mode<\/a> on defense. If the Sixers can pair an elite offense with an above-average defense, that should cement them as a legitimate championship contender this year, health permitting.<\/p>\n

Unless otherwise noted, all stats via NBA.com<\/a>, PBPStats<\/a>, Cleaning the Glass<\/a> or Basketball Reference<\/a>. All salary information via Spotrac<\/a> and salary-cap information via RealGM<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"During Nick Nurse\u2019s first three years in Philadelphia, the Sixers\u2019 defense has mostly been\u2026 fine? They were 11th…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":912338,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,107314,85],"class_list":["post-912337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sixers-analysis","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/912337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=912337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/912337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/912338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=912337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=912337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=912337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}