FanPost

How do the Sixers match up against the Clippers?

This is something I’ve been wondering since the Clippers made the Kawhi/PG trade. They’re looking like one of the Western favorites to make it out of their side of the bracket, as are we. I think our size will help us against most teams in the league. Before Boogie’s injury I felt we matched up with them so well I hoped to see them in the Finals. Denver with Jokic and Milsap is formidable but I still believe Joel/Al will be too big and versatile for them, while our mobility will be enough to deal with whatever they throw at us small ball wise on the perimeter. I don’t think many teams will be able to go small enough to hurt us worse than we will hurt them big. I think our starters’ size will hurt pretty much every other top-10ish team in the league while we’ll still have enough mobility to stick them good on the perimeter and in P&R situations. LAC is a slight exception I worry about.

If LAC went Zubac/Leonard/PG/Shamet/Beverly, what would the matchups look like? Who would Horford guard? Joel would likely get Zubac, Joe has had success against Giannis but idk how that would go against Kawhi. I’d still say the best for Kawhi is Ben. J-Rich for PG, Tobi on PatBev might be a good place to hide him. Beverly isn’t that dangerous off the dribble right? It would also be easier than chasing Landry around screens. Tobias length may even hinder PatBev’s effectiveness from 3p range. I just don’t see where Horford would go without hurting his value defensively. Am I wrong? Does anyone disagree? My other main concern is, I’d think Kawhi would guard him on D and Kawhi is so big and strong I’m not sure Horford would hurt him enough there.

Utah is likely going to run something like Gobert/Bogdonavic/Ingles/Mitchell/Conley. Horford will likely guard Bojan, I think he’ll have a little success, and I think he would against Kawhi too, Al is good. But my thought is that Horford can potentially murder Bojan on offense. He stretches the floor (he shot 41% on five 3p a game in the playoffs too), he has a little handle to attack close outs with the vision to make plays while attacking them, and of course can body him in the post. I just don’t see a trade off like that vs Kawhi.

So who thinks the better idea would be to bring Al off the bench when playing LAC? I know minutes will be staggered all year long, especially in cases like this, but I think it could also help combat the Clippers depth. Maybe Ennis, but hopefully Thybulle or Zhaire will have proven up to the task of a true 3&D player. I’d also have to think in a 7 game series against them we’d have to play Joel and Horford apart a lot more than any other team.

Another part of the puzzle is Ben’s perimeter effectiveness. If he can be somewhat effective in the short/mid range with stop and pop 10 footers/floaters and just hitting wide open jumpers when he’s played off of (also taking wide open corner 3s) from time to time and he can force Kawhi to have to guard him then maybe it screws up LAC rotations enough to where it’s an advantage. That would force them to put Kawhi/Ben, Beverly/JRich and PG/Tobi, which are of course good match ups for them, but it would likely force them to play Harrell or another big more and allow Joel especially to exploit their lack of a player to really guard him. Joel will always have an advantage against them which could keep us in or win us the series if he’s healthy.

Maybe im looking at this wrong. This isn’t a "we screwed up" post. I really like how the off-season turned out and didn’t see it coming at all. I really like where our team is at and where it likely will be in a couple of years. I can’t believe we completely blew a #1 overall pick as bad as we did and were still here with 2 legit/future superstars, a multi-year all star veteran, and 2 more younger high end players who both have lower level all star potential. This is just one of my concerns going into next year and wanted to know what other people thought about it.

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