The Philadelphia 76ers were expected to steamroll the Charlotte Hornets on Monday night. They had two days off, they had a mostly healthy team, and the Hornets were on the second night of a back-to-back while also missing five key players including star guard LaMelo Ball.
Instead, the Hornets gave the Sixers all they could handle. Charlotte did not back down from the tougher Sixers as they put up 124 points and took advantage of some sloppy Philadelphia turnovers. They scored 23 points off 15 Sixers turnovers as they used their athleticism to get out and run with Kelly Oubre Jr. scoring 35 points and knocking down six triples.
Despite the Sixers being able to come away with a 127-124 overtime win, thanks to a monstrous performance by Joel Embiid, the big fella was not happy with his team on the defensive end.
“We suck defensively,” said Embiid. “I don’t know what kind of adjustments we can make…For us, we were really bad defensively. We got to do a better job. Oubre had a huge game for them so I felt like tonight, defensively, we were just going through the motions. We gotta start there. We can’t give them a chance.”
The Hornets were also getting to the basket with ease. They scored 58 points in the paint as they were getting past their perimeter defenders and making life tough for Philadelphia on the inside.
“I can’t wait to watch the film, honestly,” said coach Doc Rivers. “I just thought we made a lot of mistakes tonight and on a lot of those nights, you don’t win the game. Tonight we did.”
The Hornets were able to score rather easily on the inside and that is something that concerns Rivers and Embiid. He can’t be upset at the fact that his team dropped 127 points in a win. Philadelphia shot 52.9% from the floor compared to 44.9% shooting for Charlotte, but the Hornets took 107 attempts compared to 87 for the Sixers.
“I thought this is more of a defensive matter,” said Rivers. “I can’t have a lot of complaints when you shoot 53% and score 127 points offensively other than the turnovers. I can have complaints when they score 124 points. They only shot 44, but to 20 extra shots made the difference.”
The Sixers did look very good on the offensive end which is something that Embiid can take solace in.
“I think we saw everything tonight,” said the big fella. “They went zone, man, they try to double me from the baseline, they came from the top, they came from all over the place. They’re trying to make sure that we reverse the ball when I was on the block and we found a way, we utilized it to our advantage and we got a corner 3 every single time.”
Philadelphia’s defense will come down to effort. They will need Danny Green, Seth Curry, Shake Milton, and Tyrese Maxey to defend their guys out on the perimeter. That would help Embiid protect the basket, but Philadelphia had trouble defending the athletic Hornets out on the perimeter in this one.
“They are a difficult team to guard,” said Green. “They get out and run, they have some talent, some guys who can get up and down. We will look at the tape, make some adjustments. We can do some things differently and improve on, but they did a good job trying to trap, pushing the pace, so hopefully, we can get some bodies back too.”
This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!
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