Matisse Thybulle and the impact of non-shooters

Matisse Thybulle's defense against Steph Curry in Saturday's surprising win over the Golden State Warriors provided the Sixers, and Thybulle specifically, a little bit of cover for what has otherwise been a couple of glaring, concerning trends we've seen unfold of late.

The first is that the Sixers as a team just haven't been playing very good basketball lately, with the win over the Warriors a rare deviation from the brutal efforts in the past week against the Jazz, Grizzlies and Heat. The first two games were blowout losses for the Sixers, the third a game they lost on their home floor despite the visiting Heat being without Jimmy Butler, Bam Adebayo, Markieff Morris, Caleb Martin and Tyler Herro.

The second trend is that Doc Rivers' new starting lineup, with Thybulle taking Danny Green's spot, has been disastrous.

Once again, the Warriors game provided a brief respite for what has been an otherwise painful viewing experience for fans of this team. The new starting lineup just about held even against the Warriors, being outscored by just one point (45-46) in 20 minutes of play. When going up against the team with the best record in the NBA, that qualifies as a minor success.

The other two games that the Sixers have deployed the Embiid, Maxey, Curry, Harris and Thybulle starting five in has been to disastrous results: the Sixers were outscored by 9 points in 23 minutes of play with the starting lineup on the floor in a 2OT loss to the Wolves back on November 27th, and were outscored by 21 points in 13 minutes in a five point loss to the Heat last night. In all, the Sixers have been outscored 209-154 in the 85 minutes that Tyrese Maxey, Seth Curry, Matisse Thybulle, Tobias Harris and Joel Embiid have shared the court so far this season, good for a -31.4 net rating.

(How the starting lineup has performed in games where Thybulle has joined Maxey, Curry, Harris and Embiid).

If you strip out garbage time, like CleaningTheGlass does, that gets even worse, ballooning to a -36.7 net rating. By comparison, lineups with Maxey, Curry, Harris and Embiid, but without Thybulle, have a +13.3 net rating so far on the season.

In lineups with Maxey, Curry, Harris and Embiid. Source: CleaningTheGlass.com