Your Philadelphia 76ers are on their best five-game stretch of their lowly 2024-2025 NBA campaign. They’re 3-2, with wins over the Detroit Pistons, Charlotte Hornets and Orlando Magic, and close losses to the Houston Rockets and Orlando. In this stretch, their net rating is plus-3.7. On the season, it’s minus-5.7.
This team was supposed to be a title contender, so we are kind of applauding the postman for dropping off the mail in the general vicinity of the mailbox here, but it’s good to be positive.
There are always multiple reasons for such drastic improvement, but one aspect of Philly’s game has stood out this past week: pull-up three-point shooting. On the season, the 76ers have taken the ninth-most pull-up threes per game (12.2) but shot them at the fourth-worst efficiency (27.3%). In the last five games, they’ve taken the 14th-most per game (9.6) and shot them at the eighth-best efficiency (39.6%).
Pull-up threes aren’t a great shot to bank individual or team offense on. It’s often a lazy shot taken when the offense is going nowhere. But Nick Nurse seems to have implemented a few actions that generate great shots for his main offensive weapons in this stretch: Paul George, Jared McCain and Tyrese Maxey.
In the win over Charlotte, George shot 5-of-7 on pull-up threes. Every make came after a screen, but the first two were beautiful plays not in their complexity, but in their simplicity. George receives a handoff from Maxey and then gets a great screen from Guerschon Yabusele. With Yabu’s defender in drop, PG is wide-open. Bang.
For the second, George receives one off-ball screen before catching the ball and getting two more screens. This completely discombobulates the defense (McCain is open one pass away!) allowing PG to step into another wide-open three. Later in the game, the actions for his pull-up threes aren’t as ‘complicated’ as these first two were, but these were essential in getting him into a rhythm.
Against Houston, six of the team’s seven pull-up threes came after screen or handoff actions (the only one that didn’t was an end-of-shot clock heave). McCain and Maxey shot all of them (Maxey made all three makes) and used each other’s gravity to generate the shots.
They also made 50% of their pull-up threes in their loss to Orlando. Watch how open McCain gets off that same Maxey hand-off action that got George open against Charlotte. Later in the game, McCain receives an off-ball screen from Yabu, pump-fakes in the corner, and hits the now-open three.
To shoot 50% on any shot against Houston and Orlando, the league’s second and third-best defenses, is phenomenal! But what should generate confidence is that those pull-up threes seemed to be the shots that the team intended to create, not just ‘fuck it’ pull-ups.
NB: In Friday night’s win over the Magic, the team only shot three pull-up threes (all open, but missed) and that’s okay! If the shot isn’t there, don’t take it.
Pullup or shutup!
Philly's pull-up three has been one of the league's best in their recent 3 - 2 five-game stretch. These are all the makes in that time. Look at the space they generate!
Have been running some actions they weren't earlier (PG's first two threes vs CHA). pic.twitter.com/HgnwVtQPHb
— seth (@sethgupw) December 7, 2024
Of course, this may be analysis for naught. Sometimes teams and players get hot, sometimes they get cold. Relying on hot streaks is like relying on a skateboard in a snowstorm. It might look cool if you somehow pull it off, but I would strongly advise against it.
But, to be sure it’s not just such a streak, I went to four random games and looked at the team’s pull-up threes. The team shot a collective 8/40 (20%) on pull-up threes in those games (vs. Detroit on Oct. 30, vs. Phoenix on Nov. 4, vs. Miami on Nov. 18, and vs. Clippers on Nov. 24). They never ran that Maxey handoff into a ball screen play, nor did I see many double or triple screening actions.
This is to say, and I’ll accept that I’m likely to be wrong, I think this pull-up shooting improvement is sustainable. They’ve been far more intentional in generating space through player movement and screening in the past four games, compared to the dribble-heavy, somewhat hesitant screening of pullup threes in the past.
Before the first Orlando game, Nurse spoke about how with all the shifting roles and different lineups, he’s focused on “trying to keep [the team] organized in basic stuff.” Basic stuff is screening and moving the ball to get your players the best shots.
They’re finally making it easier for their mailmen to deliver.