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Download the GameTime app in the Google Player App Store and score last-minute deals on tickets up to 60% off. All right, welcome, everybody. This is Derek Bonner. Join this week, this episode by Mike O'Connor, a part of the athletic podcast network. I guess there's a real quick reminder since this will be a public podcast posted to our feed,

if you can go check us out theathletic.com slash sixersbeat. You can get 40% off a subscription.

We release two podcasts a week. One of them is only available for the athletic subscribers.

In addition to that, you also get access to all of our written content, including by this guy, the always excellent film breakdowns. How you doing, Mike? I'm all right, man. Thank you for having me on. It's been a little while. I feel like Rich and I were starting to sound a little bit like Peanuts characters, where it's just want, want, want, want, want. I feel like if we talk about Ben Simmons not shooting jumpers one more time, I might lose my mind,

Rich might lose his mind, and listeners might lose their mind. So I think we'd bring you,

and you've written a couple of interesting features lately on the Sixers' offense,

on where it's lacking on what you would do to sort of remedy that. So I guess we'll start off there. What are your general thoughts on this

team's offense? You know, they're up to up to. It was lower before. They're at 19th in the league

right now, according to basketball reference. That's not where you want them to be. If they're

going to be an NBA finals and a championship contender, that's not where they need to be.

And they currently have the sixth-ranked defense, which, heading into that disaster of a, of a Washington game,

they were the top-ranked defense over the last three or so weeks since November 17th, I believe, was the stat.

So they're moving in the right direction there.

The offense is still a work in progress.

What's your overall takeaway from basically about the first quarter of the season?

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