Ben Simmons of the Philadelphia 76ers is turning into a very good player in this league and is well on his way to becoming a superstar in the NBA. There is one big glaring hole that is hurting him though, his jump shot, and if he wants to take the next step, he needs to get better.
Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant appeared on the Chris and Caron show on Fox Sports Radio to talk about a lot of different topics surrounding the NBA playoffs, and one of those was about Simmons' jump shot and how to help improve it.
“Just aesthetically I would say build that thing anew (laughs). I don’t think the game came down to that though.”
One thing he also thinks that the 76ers need to do better is the little things. They had a couple of bad turnovers in this series that have cost them all three games.
“I think on a fundamental level, being able to get open off the ball is what did them in. They just tried to pop free for the ball, and in that situation you can’t do that. You got to put your body on your defender, hold them off and now you got to pop for the ball. Those are just basic, fundamental things, but those little fundamental things are what cost teams playoff series’ and eventual championships. So it’s those little fundamental things that you’ve really got to focus on from Day 1 in training camp, because if you lose sight of that it comes back to haunt you. In the league, in the NBA, it tends to be overlooked. But Phil [Jackson] never overlooked that stuff. We would do basic things. How to pop for the ball, b-cuts, proper bounce passes, left hand passes, right hand passes. All those little things. As you saw in that Philly series, there were two plays where they turned the ball over on passes.”
The problem for the 76ers now is that they need to change habits that they have been doing all year, which is going to be near impossible to do.
If the 76ers want to win this series against the Boston Celtics, they need to try to be better with the ball during those situations. It's going to be an uphill battle, but if they start doing the little things they at least have a fighters chance.
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