The Philadelphia 76ers had a rough night on the offensive end outside of their star duo of Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons in Saturday’s loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers. Embiid shot 13-for-22 for 42 points and Simmons shot 11-for-17 for 24 points, but they could not get help from the rest of the supporting cast.
Seth Curry shot just 1-for-13, Furkan Korkmaz was 1-for-5 from deep, and Shake Milton was the only other Sixer in double-figures with 11 points off the bench. Philadelphia’s best offense came in transition as they were not able to get it right in the half-court in this one.
“We just refused to get into anything,” said coach Doc Rivers. “We didn’t get into our early offense after makes, we didn’t get into our sets with any speed or pace. It looked like, honestly, we’re running our offense like it was a walkthrough in the first half. I thought, third quarter we picked it up a little bit, and we had a sense of urgency, but we just didn’t handle a lot of stuff very well tonight.”
The lack of 3-point attempts is something that was an issue again on Saturday. Philadelphia made 10 triples as a team, but they only shot 28. When the Sixers are in a groove, they move the ball crisply and that means they get more open looks from deep due to the ball movement. That was not the case on Saturday.
“We gotta create for each other,” said Embiid. “I think we still don’t shoot enough 3s. I think we just gotta create for each other and you’re wide open, just left it fly. If you miss it, we got a couple of good offensive rebounders, and if you make it, good.”
Then, as mentioned, Philadelphia was able to have success in the transition offense, but they were not able to get enough stops on the defensive end to get out and run. That then seeped into their lack of offensive execution in the half-court.
“Offensively, it also gets better when you get stops,” Embiid added. “It always starts on defense. If you get stops, we have one of the fastest players in the league in Ben and we can push it in transition. For me, it’s not about just offense, it’s about defense. When you get stops, you can run and you can get easy baskets.”
Simmons simply said that the effort was not there and he is not wrong about that. The lack of ball movement proved that.
“I think it’s multiple things,” Simmons said. “The effort wasn’t there, I’d say that’s the main thing.”
The team will now move on to face the Indiana Pacers on Monday.
This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!
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