Things are not good right now for the Philadelphia 76ers. They are once again struggling on the road and they are having issues on the one end they are supposed to be dominant on which is the defensive end.
The loss to the Miami Heat on Monday was one of their worst losses of the season, if not the worst, and it caused a lot of finger-pointing by the outside world. It also caused the Sixers to lose yet another game in the race for home-court advantage in the Eastern Conference.
They are also 0-3 on this four-game road trip and they have to head to Milwaukee to face the Bucks on Thursday to conclude the trip and look to at least get one win on this trip.
“Our backs are against the wall right now,” said Al Horford. “That last game didn’t go as well as we wanted it to, especially in the second half. We have to respond and I believe that our team has responded every time this year when we’ve hit some adversity so tomorrow night is not going to be any different. We have to respond.”
The Sixers have shown a tendency to rise to the occasion when they have to, but that was not the case on Monday. Especially after losing by 21 points the previous game to the Boston Celtics and giving up 127 points to the Atlanta Hawks the game before that.
“We weren’t focused enough,” Horford said of the loss in Miami. “We were focused in the first half, but then they made a little run and for some reason, we weren’t able to recover. As a group, we need to be more focused. We get a little better on the road, but we’ve fallen back to a bad pattern.”
The Sixers are now 9-18 on the road and have lost four in a row away from Wells Fargo Center after they picked up a few road wins against the New York Knicks and the Brooklyn Nets. Not like those wins are all that impressive, but it gave the team a bit of a feel-good moment for them.
All of that is gone now and they have to face a Bucks team on Thursday that holds the best record in the NBA. This does not get any easier for them.
“Tomorrow we’re going into a place that’s tough and our backs are against the wall,” he explained. “We need to really be great tomorrow.”
The Sixers and the Bucks tipoff at 8:00 p.m. EST on Thursday. [lawrence-related id=24973,24955,24942]