Philadelphia 76ers: Matisse Thybulle is becoming Bruce Brown 2.0

Between the acquisition of James Harden and his eventual Philadelphia 76ers debut, fans wondered who should be Doc Rivers’ fifth starter moving forward.

The team could have theoretically inserted Harden into the Seth Curry slot and kept the offense more or less copacetic. But, and I mean no offense to Steph’s brother, Harden is a good bit better than the younger Curry, and the offensive identity of Rivers’ squad would undoubtedly evolve with his addition.

With Harden and Joel Embiid individually ranking in the top-10 in double teams drawn per game, could the team really afford to have a non-shooter like Matisse Thybulle on the court? I mean, sure, his defense is great, maybe even the best in the association, but if he bricks 8-10 of the 3s he attempts, that won’t look too kindly on the net rating. Would it be wiser instead to go with Danny Green or even Georges Niang and sacrifice some defense for much better offense?

As it turns out, Matisse Thybulle was the least of the Philadelphia 76ers’ worries. Why? Because James Harden has made it his mission to turn the Washington product into a bigger version of Bruce Brown.

Thybulle is the Philadelphia 76ers’ Dunk-and-D wing.

Bruce Brown entered the NBA as a backcourt player. A two-year starter at the University of Miami alongside Reading, Pennsylvania native Lonnie Walker, Brown was drafted with the 12th pick in the second round of the 2018 NBA Draft by the Detroit Pistons with the intentions of serving as a defensive-minded combo guard.

Over his first two seasons in the Motor City, Brown increased his statistical performances with each passing season, going from 4.3 points and 2.5 rebounds in 19.6 minutes per game as a rookie to 8.9 points and 4.7 rebounds in 28.2 minutes in his second season of action. What also changed from season one to two for Brown was how he was deployed positionally, as he was initially used exclusively as a wing player, before transitioning to a 50-50 split between on and off-ball duties for the Pistons.

When the Nets acquired Brown along with Landry Shamet in a three-team deal that eventually featured nine players when everything was said and done, Brooklyn wasn’t really sure how to use their new player. He went from averaging 55.9 touches per game with the Pistons to a little over 18 during his first two weeks in a black and white uniform and averaged just 2.4 points in 11.6 minutes per game despite starting three of the seven games he appeared in. He was playing off the ball once more, and instead of creating his own shot, he was relegated to a weird, off-ball role, which isn’t ideal for a non-3 point shooter.

But then, James Harden came to town, and Brown started to thrive. Deployed as an undersized, switch-defending small forward for 60 percent of his minutes, Brown quickly became a favorite of Harden for his ability to cut to the basket and score high-percentage buckets around the rim. What Brown could do rapidly overshadowed what he couldn’t, and his former life as a point guard came in handy as he became more and more comfortable as a high-minutes semi-starter.

Hmm.. now who does that sound like? Well, outside of the ball-handling duties, what we’ve seen from Matisse Thybulle looks pretty darn similar to how Harden played off of Brown in Brooklyn, and though the sample size is small, the third-year forward has already watched his offensive production explode as a result.

Because Harden is such a darn good scorer, opposing teams are often willing to ease a defender off of Thybulle to put additional pressure on the Philadelphia 76ers’ premier perimeter scorer. Normally, that isn’t a bad idea, as Thybulle is a really low-percentage shooter from beyond the arc and doesn’t even hit catch-and-shoot 3s at an average NBA clip, but because Harden is equally as good a passer as he is a shooter, such business decisions should now result in a steady stream of 22 cuts to the basket, where the pride of Washington scores on roughly 80 percent of his shots from within three feet.

Have you heard of a 3-and-D player? Well, Thybulle – and Brown for that matter – is a Dunk-and-D player who puts pressure on defense not with his floor spacing efficiency but with the ease at which he can get points on the board with a well-placed pass.

Factor in the fastbreak dunks that have been a part of Thybulle’s game for some time now but have become even more prevalent with Harden throwing 80-yard bombs like an NFL quarterback, and there’s a reason why Thybulle is averaging 9.5 points on 61.5 shooting from the field despite attempting only five shots total, not per game. As improbable as it may sound, Harden and Thybulle actually have the best Net Rating of either player’s high-usage pairings, holding a 44.2 in 43 minutes of action.

If that can continue, the Sixers really might have something.

Will Matisse Thybulle’s offensive excellence continue? Has he finally found an offensive role that works for his set of skills, instead of trying to stick a square peg into a round hole, or will we look at these last two games as the calm before the storm? Only time will tell, but with James Harden running the show, it’s clear all of the Philadelphia 76ers’ players will be the beneficiaries of some choice passes and the lighter oppositional expectations of being lower on the scouting report. Considering Thybulle’s All-NBA defense, if he can just become a Bruce Brown-level performer on offense, there won’t be any conversations about who should start at small forward ever again.