The final score will say that the Philadelphia 76ers scored 114 points on Monday in their Game 4 loss to the Washington Wizards, but they were a tough 114 points to come up with.
With the team losing Joel Embiid in the first half to right knee soreness, it was up to the others to step up and make up for the lack of offense. Instead, the Sixers struggled to really move the ball and the execution on the offensive end was not there at all.
The Wizards blocked 12 shots, five from Daniel Gafford, and they bothered Tobias Harris, especially. Harris has had a great series from an efficiency standpoint, but he shot just 8-for-24 on Monday to score his 21 points and he had a tough time holding onto the ball and getting his shot blocked.
“It was more self-inflicted,” said coach Doc Rivers. “I thought we had great matchups, we just over-dribbled too much. I think at one time you remember, he had Ish Smith at half-court trying to back him down from half-court. You got to move the ball, reposition yourself, and then go to the post.”
Considering the circumstances the Sixers were presented with, Harris had to give more without Embiid. Ben Simmons is not a guy who will score the basketball like that and they have to rely on Harris getting to the basket and finishing.
“I think a lot of it was on our end,” said Harris. “We in there taking contested shots at the rim, especially with the way they pick-and-roll so we got to do a better job, making the right plays while going downhill. Myself, I got my shot blocked a couple times as well. Just got to evaluate where the defense is at and making the right play.”
Due to the fact that the Sixers were trying to play a lot of hero ball, it made it almost easy for Washington to block their shots.
“I thought we were offensively very impatient,” Rivers added. “I thought of the four games, the first game where the guy was trying to will the game for us. When you have 12 blocked shots at some point, you’re taking pretty bad shots. No one should have 12 block shots in the game and they did. A lot of that was shot selection for us.”
Without Embiid, the ball did not move as often and they seemed to try and play hero ball which is to be expected. It’s human nature when a team loses its star. The other guys on the team want to fill that role as best they can and it can bog down an offense a bit.
“I thought it was a lot of that,” Rivers finished. “Each guy thought they had to win the game for us and our best stretch was in that fourth quarter when we were just rocketing the ball, moving, going downhill and the ball was swinging and then we did whatever we wanted.”
The Sixers will now have to recalibrate and get ready for Game 5 back in Philadelphia on Wednesday.
This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!
[mm-video type=playlist id=01f09kz5ecxq9bp57b player_id=01f5k5xtr64thj7fw2 image=https://sixerswire.usatoday.com/wp-content/plugins/mm-video/images/playlist-icon.png]
[lawrence-related id=46659,46656,46651]