MILWAUKEE — The box score for the Philadelphia 76ers’ 118-117 season-opening road loss to the Milwaukee Bucks shows Joel Embiid had 24 points, seven rebounds and six assists.
Those are not terrible numbers for a season opener, but if one looks closer, the box score also shows Embiid had seven turnovers and shot 2-for-8 in the fourth quarter. On one of those turnovers, Embiid hung his head and the Bucks gained a triple from Jae Crowder out of it because the big fella was late getting back on defense.
Those are sequences that just cannot happen. One has to wonder if maybe it was rust from only playing in one preseason game.
“We just followed whatever they (the team’s staff) want, but that was the plan,” Embiid said afterward. “It’s not the first time that this happens. It’s a long season and we’re gonna be fine, but I think over the years. It’s the first game of the season. We can’t come in here and expect to drop 40 or 50. It’s gonna come it’s gonna happen.”
Embiid is a notoriously slow starter. Even in the MVP season, he had a rough couple of games before he found his groove and ended up having a terrific season.
There were moments in this one where Embiid looked passive — as if he wasn’t sure where he needed to be. Though that was a bit concerning, it is just Game 1 of 82. He miss a number of easy shots down the stretch when the Sixers had a chance to steal one from a very good Bucks team, but it wasn’t meant to be.
“I thought tonight, I was a little bit passive, but then again, it’s a new offense,” Embiid added. “We’re all trying to learn. Just trying to make the right plays, the right reads, we just gotta work on the spacing, but it was a good start.”
Coach Nick Nurse added he thought Embiid looked good despite maybe a little bit of rust from only playing the one preseason game.
“A little bit, but I thought he looked pretty good,” Nurse said. “I know he had a stretch there we had a couple — I thought he had three or four really good looks there in a stretch that he didn’t hit, but I thought he looked pretty good out there.”
The Sixers now head to Toronto to take on the Raptors on Saturday.
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