One year later: What we learned from Nick Nurse’s first season as Sixers head coach

The Sixers last year made a Memorial Day splash when news emerged that they had agreed to hire Nick Nurse as their head coach.

Since then, Nurse has learned that leading this team is a continuously eventful endeavor. His first 12 months included the James Harden saga and the eventual blockbuster trade to the Los Angeles Clippers. And a season-altering knee surgery for Joel Embiid, which derailed his hopes to repeat as the NBA’s MVP and shifted the Sixers from contender to play-in team. And a hard-fought first-round series against the New York Knicks but ultimately an early postseason exit.

“The season was kind of like that series — it was really difficult,” Nurse said minutes after the Sixers’ season-ending Game 6 loss. “I thought we had a lot of injury issues and stuff like that all season long, but I thought we fought.”

How did Nurse navigate — and contribute to — his first season with the Sixers? Here are five takeaways:

The Sixers finished the regular season ranked 11th in the NBA in defensive efficiency at 113 points allowed per 100 possessions. That is impressive, considering they played without interior anchor Embiid for two months and without perimeter pests De’Anthony Melton and Robert Covington for essentially all of the 2024 calendar year.

Nurse applied his aggressive principles to his group. During the regular season, the Sixers tied for first in steals (8.5 per game) and second in deflections (16.2 per game) and fourth in turnovers forced (14.6 per game). The Sixers leaned on the savvy of veterans Nico Batum and Kyle Lowry, improvements from Tyrese Maxey, and Kelly Oubre Jr. relishing that end of the floor, as he earned the assignment on All-NBA guard Jalen Brunson for much of the first-round series.

The primary issue the Sixers never fixed: They allowed 15.4 fast-break points per game, the seventh-most in the league. And though they were a better rebounding team compared to the previous two seasons, sitting 20th at 43 per game still was not good enough — as evidenced during that Knicks series.

Nurse’s belief in Maxey was clear early, when the coach publicly declared that the fourth-year guard should take 20 shots per game. “Aggressive” then remained the buzzword whenever the coach described what he wanted out of Maxey.

That could be viewed as a natural progression as he moved into the lead ballhandler role following Harden’s exit. But the confidence from the coach helped carry Maxey to his first All-Star appearance before he ultimately won the NBA’s Most Improved Player award and contended for All-NBA contender. He averaged a career-high 25.9 points and 6.2 assists while establishing a brilliant two-man game with Embiid and learning what it’s like to be the defense’s focal point during the big man’s absence.

Then, he often dazzled in the playoffs, including a seven-point outburst in the final 25 seconds of regulation to propel the Sixers to an overtime Game 5 victory. After going a subpar 6-of-18 from the floor in a Game 6, however, Nurse offered another public challenge to Maxey.

“If you’re going to be an ‘A’ player, you’ve got to do it most nights,” he said.

Though Maxey more consistently took deeper three-pointers this season, a next step is to diversify his shot profile when he drives, rather than too often hoping he gets foul calls at the rim.

This applies to the way the Sixers played during the eight-week stretch while Embiid recovered from surgery and in the brief minutes he rested during the Knicks playoff series. The Sixers largely could not survive either scenario, even with Nurse’s reputation for schematic creativity.

Some of that can be blamed on roster-building. Morey acknowledged during his end-of-season news conference that they are more focused on building a team that complements Embiid, not one that can manage without him, because the former version is the one that has a chance to win the championship.

Some of those struggles also can be blamed on the players, most glaringly Tobias Harris’ failure to consistently step into the second-option role.

And some of it can be blamed on the fact that Embiid’s injury was far from the only health issue facing the Sixers this season. That limited players’ abilities to establish continuity under a first-year coaching staff, which in turn led to execution glitches in high-pressure situations.

“You never get quite as organized or in sync or the connectivity that you’d love to have as a coach,” Nurse said following their final game. “It felt like we had to do a lot of stuff on the fly. A lot of stuff off the board. So that makes it tough.

“But, again, it is what it is. You’ve got to figure it out. … We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

So that is Nurse’s next task. And if the Sixers opt to manage Embiid’s availability during the 2024-25 regular season — à la the way the Raptors handled Kawhi Leonard’s one season with Nurse — the coach must identify ways to sustain for spot games, or stretches of games, and better set up their postseason run.

Much of Nurse’s lineup and rotation tinkering during the regular season was to account for the bevy of injuries, rather than for tactical experimentation. But he eventually shifted to starting more traditional center Mo Bamba over Paul Reed while Embiid was out, kept Oubre in the first five over Batum, and added Lowry to that starting group shortly after he joined off the buyout market in Febaurary.

Perhaps most interesting is how he managed Buddy Hield, a prominent trade-deadline acquisition.

The veteran sharpshooter began his Sixers stint as a starter, but moved to a bench role in March for the rest of the regular season. Then when Hield sputtered mightily in his first playoff action, Nurse took him out of the rotation in favor of the more experienced Cameron Payne. Then, Nurse went back to Hield in Game 6, where he exploded for 17 first-half points on 5-of-7 from three-point range.

Scheme-wise, Nurse during these playoffs did not unleash anything as unorthodox as his infamous box-and-1 during the 2019 Finals.

The Sixers did throw a variety of defenders at Brunson and were particularly active while guarding him from behind as the he tried to maneuver in the lane. That led to inefficient shooting early in the series but left role players such as Josh Hart and Donte DiVincenzo open from three. When the Sixers adjusted to better counter those looks, that sparked Brunson’s run of four consecutive 40-point games that carried into the second round.

The head coach is the daily public face of any NBA organization, facing questions on topics ranging from game plans, to individual player development, to injuries, to off-court situations.

Nurse possesses a different demeanor than previous coach Doc Rivers, who could charm a room with his stories but also could turn snarky or condescending when a topic surfaced that he did not appreciate. This season, Nurse professionally handled the instant (and constant) early-season questions about the Harden drama, with which he was not involved. Later, Nurse constantly was peppered with inquiries about Embiid’s injury and recovery timeline.

Overall, Nurse was thoughtful and engaging while discussing basketball strategy and broader, foundation-building approach during his first season in Philly — though predictably was more closed-off during the playoffs.