The Philadelphia 76ers needed somebody to give the team a spark on Tuesday. They were not able to get into a groove against a very good defensive New York Knicks squad and they were not able to move the ball and get into a flow like they wanted to.
At the half, they trailed it 56-48 and they were shooting only 40% from the floor and they were 4-for-13 from deep. They also had seven turnovers and they could not get much offense other than Ben Simmons and Tobias Harris.
It made for a rough halftime as coach Doc Rivers was not happy with the way the team was playing.
“I was really frustrated in the first half,” said Rivers. “Those first five possessions of the game, I think they had four uncontested shots with us standing there. We couldn’t get open, they got up into our bodies, and we just thought we would casually come to the ball. Everybody tried to make individual plays. I wasn’t real happy at halftime, I can tell you that.”
In the second half, they were able to get into a groove a bit more and that allowed Seth Curry to go off a bit. He only had three points at halftime, but he had 17 in the second half as he was able to get some open looks off the ball movement.
“We made some adjustments throughout the game, it’s a 48-minute game,” said Curry. “You make adjustments to their style of play. They play differently than anybody in the league, they kind of muck up the game, just play real physical. They pressure a lot so we just had to adjust to that and we were able to figure it out.”
They needed all of it in this one. While Harris was able to make some clutch plays down the stretch in order to close it out, Curry was the one knocking down shots to get the team back into it.
“I thought in the second half, we talked about an action with Ben, Tobias, or Seth and stay in that action,” Rivers added. “I thought we did it in the second half. I was frustrated that we couldn’t see that firsthand.”
It was clear the team needed to make an adjustment, but they were able to get the job done in the final 24 minutes. The Knicks are a very good defensive team and the Sixers needed to be the aggressors in this one. They were able to do that after halftime.
“It was rough going into halftime,” said Simmons. “We weren’t happy with the way we were playing. We weren’t moving the ball the way we wanted to. We change our mindset and came out aggressive.’
The Sixers will now take on a very tough Milwaukee Bucks team on Wednesday.
This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!
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