By the Numbers: Sixers mystifying home/road splits must be seen to be believed

For most who have followed the 76ers this season, the feelings over the NBA resuming their season at a neutral site in Orlando followed two distinct waves of emotions.

The first wave came when fans realized that the Sixers wouldn’t have to play other teams on their home courts. The Sixers finished the season 10-24, with a -5.4 net rating, on the road this season. But then came the sudden and devastating realization that the Sixers would play no more games at the Wells Fargo Center, where they were almost unbeatable (29-2, +10.3 net rating) this year.

That discrepancy is absolutely surreal. Will a neutral site like Orlando follow more along the lines of the Sixers’ road performance, or will it fall somewhere in the middle? Was it the adverse conditions of a road game which caused them to struggle so much away from the Wells Fargo Center, or was it the hometown crowd which elevated them to unbeatable levels when playing in south Philadelphia?

Only time will tell.

For now, let’s take a look at some of the biggest statistical reasons that the disparity was so large.

3-point shooting

When the Sixers were at the Wells Fargo Center they shot 37.6 percent from 3-point range, with their opponents connecting on only 33 percent of their looks from deep. That ranked them as the sixth most efficient team in the league from 3-point range at home, with the third-best 3-point defense when they were at the Wells Fargo Center. Overall, that 4.6 percent edge in 3-point shooting when the Sixers played at home was the second-biggest gap in the entire league.

When the Sixers went on the road, that was an entirely different story. In fact, they were outshot from 3-point range, 37.6 percent to 35 percent, when playing in any arena that wasn’t the Wells Fargo Center.

That 7.2 percent change in 3-point shooting differential over their opponent (from 4.6 percent advantage at home to 2.6 percent disadvantage on the road) was tied with the Miami Heat for the biggest gap in the entire league. To put into context how big of a change 7.2 percent is, 23 out of 30 teams had a change of plus or minus 3 percent.

On the offensive side of the ball, a lot of this dropoff comes from role players. Furkan Korkmaz made 45.3 percent of his 3-point attempts at the Wells Fargo Center, just 34.7 percent on the road. Matisse Thybulle shot 45.1 percent at home, 25.4 percent on the road. But Al Horford (30.5 percent on the road) and Tobias Harris (34.9 percent) struggled as well. It’s truly baffling.

A delta of 7.2 percent is astronomical, and I’ll get my “profound” observation out of the way early in this article: it’s easier to win when you make your own shots and force your opponents to miss theirs.

Defending without fouling

At the Wells Fargo Center, Sixers opponents averaged 21.9 free-throw attempts per 100 possessions, which makes the Sixers the 11th stingiest defense in the league in terms of keeping opponents off of the free-throw line when on their home floor. Not great, but slightly above average, and when you factor in the other components of the Sixers’ home defense (second best opponent effective field goal percentage, fifth best defensive rebounding rate) it combines for the suffocating defense we expected from this group.

On the road that’s a completely different story, as opponents averaged 26.6 free-throw attempts per 100 possessions, which is the most allowed by a defense when on the road. Nearly five additional free-throw attempts for the opponent is tough to overcome.

Anecdotally, the Sixers just didn’t seem to have the same focus and intensity on the road that they did at home and that was especially true on the defensive side of the court. These first two categories – defending the 3, defending without fouling – provide some supporting evidence of that being the case.

Joel Embiid missing games

Joel Embiid has appeared in 44 of the Sixers’ 65 games so far this season; 15 of the 21 games that he has missed were when the Sixers were on the road.

On first glance, that would seemingly account for much of the Sixers’ road struggles which, if true, would put the minds of Sixers fans at ease. But that’s a long way off from painting the full picture.

The Sixers struggled mightily on the road, regardless of whether Embiid was in the game or not. In fact, the Sixers were just 5-14 in the 19 games that Joel Embiid played away from the Wells Fargo Center, with a -3.4 net rating in the 585 minutes that Embiid was on the court during those games. By contrast, the Sixers had a +11.3 net rating with Embiid in the game while they were at the Wells Fargo Center.

You could go through almost any lineup permutation you want and the road counterpart performed significantly worse than they did at home. When both Embiid and Simmons were on the floor during games played at the Wells Fargo Center, they had a +8.1 net rating. That was -7.5 on the road. Embiid, Simmons and Harris? They were +9.4 at home, -5.4 on the road. Embiid, Simmons, Harris and Richardson? An amazing +14.9 at home, but -4.2 on the road. There’s way more to these road struggles than just player availability.

Shot location data suggests fluky results

Throughout the entire season, something in the back of my mind has repeatedly told me, “This could be fluky. This will normalize.” And there’s a part of me that still believes this will normalize – to some degree.

Clearly, the entire gap doesn’t come down to randomness. That’s especially true defensively, where the Sixers go from the second-best defense at home (102.7 defensive rating) to 20th (112.1) on the road. From stats like the fouling numbers above to just watching the games it’s clear the intensity isn’t always there on the road. They’ve undoubtedly been worse on the road, the question is just how much worse.

But some of those 3-point shooting stats, particularly for opponents, could be a little bit fluky. For example, at the Wells Fargo Center the Sixers give up corner 3s on just 5.1 percent of their opponent’s shots, which is the stingiest in the league. On the road, that “jumps” to 6 percent, which is still the fewest in the NBA. But the effectiveness of their opponent’s attempts from the corners jumps drastically, from 33.1 percent at home to 43.6 percent on the road. If it were just bad defense you would typically see the Sixers give up more corner 3-point attempts, since their defensive schemes are designed to discourage opponents from being able to take that shot. But you don’t see that.

Similarly, there’s a big jump on how often the opponent connects on “wide open” 3-point shots, defined as a shot where there isn’t a defender within 6 feet of the shooter. When the Sixers are home, opponents connect on just 35 percent of these easy 3-point attempts, compared to making 38.6 percent of them when the Sixers are on the road. And the Sixers aren’t giving up significantly more wide-open 3-point shots on the road (14.5 per game, 7th fewest) than they do at home (14.1 per game, 4th fewest). Again, if it were just bad defense at play here you would expect them to give up more wide-open looks.

That doesn’t mean the entirety of the Sixers’ nearly 10 points per 100 possession defensive drop-off can be attributed to luck. But perhaps a couple of those points could be, and that would at least give them a fighting chance.

Shooting at home

A lot of this article has been looking at this through the lens of trying to figure out what is different about the Sixers on the road, and determining whether or not that can be fixed. But there’s another side to this question: What if the Sixers have been overachieving at the Wells Fargo Center?

This seems especially relevant on the offensive side of the court, where the Sixers have a 113 offensive rating at home, compared to just 106.7 on the road. While 113 points per 100 possessions isn’t great (it comes in at 11th in the league), it’s competitive enough that, when the Sixers’ defense is locked in, it can help them win a lot of games.

But that success has been built on a lot of fluky shooting. For instance, the Sixers shoot 43.1 percent on midrange shots at the Wells Fargo Center, according to CleaningTheGlass, which comes in as the seventh most efficient in the league. Their 38 percent clip on 3-point shots above the break (non-corner) is the league’s third most efficient mark.

Does anybody truly believe the Sixers are one of the best teams in the league at shooting long jumpers?

Those numbers predictably fall off a cliff when the Sixers are on the road: 34.6 percent on midrange jumpers and an astonishingly bad 26.9 percent on above-the-break 3-point shots. Oof.

The Sixers better hope that some of their road woes are fluky, because some of their success at home may have been as well.

(Photo: Stacy Revere / Getty Images)