The Philadelphia 76ers were facing a tough challenge on Thursday as they had to take on the Milwaukee Bucks on the second night of a back-to-back while missing Ben Simmons and it resulted in a 124-117 loss on the road for a third consecutive loss. Philadelphia trailed by as many as 21 and they could not rally from the deficit in this one.
The Bucks started off hot as they scored 40 points in the first quarter and then scored 37 in the second quarter as they got every shot they wanted in this one. Joel Embiid, who had 24 points on 9-for-21 shooting in 27 minutes, looked like he was a step slow on both the offensive and defensive end of the floor and it seemed to affect him and everybody else on the team.
“We were gonna watch his minutes tonight,” said coach Doc Rivers. “Everybody seemed fatigued, not just Joel, I would love to say Joel played better than most of our guys tonight. I just felt like we were late on everything. We were soft tonight defensively. That first quarter, they get every shot they wanted. We didn’t offer any resistance.”
Embiid did not play in the fourth quarter as Philadelphia was down by too much to really try and insert him back in.
Tobias Harris made his return to the lineup after three games missed and he had 18 points with six assists, but he was also upset with his and the team’s defense in the loss.
“At the end of the day, they didn’t feel us defensively,” said Harris. “Too many straight-line drives, too many short closeouts to the shooters, they got where they wanted to get to all night without any resistance. Fatigue or not, that’s something we got to be better at.”
For the night, the Bucks shot 55.6% from the floor and they shot 20-for-40 from deep. In the first quarter alone, Milwaukee shot 73.7% from the floor and they were 6-for-9 from deep, and they then shot 60% in the second quarter and they were 7-for-12 from deep.
“You can make a case, the game was pretty much decided,” said Rivers. “That first half, we had got it to like nine or 10 and had the ball, and then we turn it over so we didn’t have a lot of pop. I just didn’t like the defense, obviously, they ended up shooting 55%. It doesn’t matter who’s in or out, we gotta defend better.”
Embiid and the Sixers will get another shot at the Bucks on Saturday at Fiserv Forum.
This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!
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