The Philadelphia 76ers were able to come away with a 116-109 win over the New Orleans Pelicans on Friday to improve to 14-0 on the home floor, but they did not look all that impressive while doing it.
After a statement win on Thursday over the Boston Celtics on the road, the Sixers came home and seemed to have an emotional letdown. They allowed Pelicans to end the second quarter on a high note, they missed 11 free throws–mostly from Ben Simmons when the Pelicans initiated the “Hack-a-Ben” strategy–and they committed a lot of silly fouls.
“There are some good things that happened in that game and there are some poor things,” said coach Brett Brown. “My mind is completely on ‘What do we have to do to not be in that situation?’ Some of it is you missed some free throws, in fact you missed a lot of free throws, some of it is we had poor fouls, we fouled them too much when it mattered most in the last three minutes.”
The Sixers did lead the game by as many as 16 and they seemed to be in complete control before New Orleans took a brief lead in the second half and they cut the lead down to just four with 58.7 seconds to play thanks to Philadelphia’s mistakes and marching to the foul line. Much like in the win over the Toronto Raptors on Sunday, Brown was upset at the team’s lack of execution in the late stages and overall.
“You can’t just be lifted off the floor with a little head and shoulders and somebody sails into you,” Brown added. “You have to have the discipline to be second, not first, off the floor. Those types of things are on my mind. I thought to end the second period, sloppy. Sloppy, we want the last shot, we don’t get the last shot, we get sped up, we miss somebody in transition, and they get a dunk.”
Tobias Harris, who led the way for Philadelphia with 31 points, believes the Sixers need to just continue to grow as a team and learn from their experiences.
“Obviously it was a little up-and-down tonight, but we felt like we had the game for the most part,” he said. “A couple of bad fouls in the fourth quarter, missed free throws, all those types of things add up in the end. There are certain things we’ll take from this game to get better at. I think, overall, there are things to take from this type of game, really going forward to continue to establish ourselves as a team and what we’re looking to do.”
At the end of the day, it is not all doom and gloom for the Sixers. With the Miami Heat loss to the Los Angeles Lakers, they are now the only remaining undefeated team at home in the Eastern Conference.
“The good news is, you remain undefeated (at home), you move up to second in the East, you had a great weekend,” Brown finished with. “I think we’re 9-1 in back-to-back games. That’s how I see it.”
The Sixers will look to clean up the mistakes and focus for a full 48 minutes on Sunday when they face the Brooklyn Nets on the road. [lawrence-related id=21296,21272,21261]