BOSTON — The Philadelphia 76ers were unable to get off on the right foot in the 2022-23 season: They fell to the Boston Celtics, 126-117, on the road. They had a difficult time getting into any rhythm while the Celtics earned easy looks.
With that said, it’s opening night. It’s one of 82 ,meaning there are 81 games left in the season, and veteran PJ Tucker would like everybody to breathe and remember this fact.
“Nobody wins a championship the first game of the season,” Tucker laughed. “Let’s be real. We got a new team, everybody is still learning, we’re still figuring out. We had some good runs, we had some bad runs. The thing is just learning from our mistakes, getting ready for the next one, there’s too many games to worry about one game. The first one.”
With that being said, the Sixers did put up 117 points on Tuesday while not having the greatest offensive game. The numbers will say Philadelphia shot 50% from the floor, but they committed 14 turnovers that Boston converted into 22 points.
“We fought, we played hard, we scored 120 points on a bad offensive night,” Tucker added. “We couldn’t get stops or figure out our schemes. Just keep getting better every day toward the end of the season to be where we wanna be.”
Tucker doesn’t want the Sixers to forget about this loss to the Celtics. He wants it to sting for a bit and then move on to the Milwaukee Bucks in the home opener on Thursday.
“I don’t want them forgetting about it,” he said bluntly. “I want them to learn from it. Don’t forget. I hate when people say that. You don’t forget. I know what I did wrong, I know stuff I need to get better at. Everybody evaluate theyself before you talk about anybody else or what else we need to do. Look at yourself. Look in the mirror. What you can do to help your teammate be better, help our team be better, and if everybody does that, then our team will be better.”
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