Nick Piccone
It took almost two weeks since Nerlens Noel returned to the Sixers’ lineup from his knee injury for Joel Embiid to get what he wanted. A few days ago, Embiid said that he wanted Noel to play on the court with him as soon as possible.
Friday night in Phoenix, Sixers’ head coach Brett Brown made it happen.
Yep – Noel and Embiid, the twin towers – on the court for the first time ever together!
For one minute and 47 seconds. BUT IT STILL HAPPENED!
“He wasn’t on the floor a lot, but I thought we did pretty good. Obviously I’ve got to watch the tape to see how we did, but I thought defensively we were pretty good and offensively we’ve just got to figure it out.”
Noel was already in the game with Embiid subbed in with 3:26 remaining in the first and the Sixers up 22-18. During that short period of time, Noel nabbed a steal and made two free throws, Embiid blocked a shot. The Sixers had a 27-20 lead when Noel subbed out.
Noel played a total of 10 minutes with four points, two rebounds and two assists.
“I thought defensively we had some good spurts,” Noel said. “I think it was just more of an experience, seeing what it looks like … I think we did and I think it went well. We just have to go from here and see what lineups work better.”
Brown pointed out the Suns’ small lineup created mismatches when Jared Dudley, listed at 6-foot-7, was defending Noel.
“Defensively, I think that we were OK once it became a halfcourt game,” Brown said. “I think that when you look at transition defense and communication, there are always growing problems. Offensively, they put a smaller guy on Nerlens. … A few times we tried to go to him. I think he’s more capable when he’s sort of moving around and offensive rebounding instead of trying to post feed.”
And I’m sure we’ll see more experiments as the season progresses.
Here are some highlights of the game, in which the Sixers lost, 123-116.