MitchB3 wrote:"When the 76ers flew to Los Angeles to meet with Simmons in August, they came equipped with reasons for why he should want to stay, which even included a statistically based presentation featuring the success of the Embiid-Simmons pairing." This sentence right here is why the Sixers haven't made it to the ECF since Embiid and Simmons became a duo. Ben is not your typical point guard and Embiid wants to occasionally step out and hit a 3 but he really shouldn't be that far out from the basket, to begin with.
There's no simple reason. Joel is still very much developing his game and decision-making in tighter circumstances against good defenses, he was bad a few years back and has gotten better, but he's still not a strong closer and still struggles with health and conditioning as the game drags on. If Joel were better as a closer and as good of a 4th quarter guy as a 1st quarter guy, then the Sixers would've at least reached one ECF so far.
And if Simmons had figured out SOME way to do anything on half-court offense against tight defenses then the same result would be likely. He really does disappear and take himself out of important games, and this last year it was as bad as anything we've seen.
(Also if the Sixers didn't happen to run into a god-like Kawhi in that 2019 series they'd have won that series, though that was outside of their control.)
