The Philadelphia 76ers were able to return home and start a 4-game homestand the right way by knocking off the Detroit Pistons 110-102. It was a solid win for a team that needed to be able to get back on track and get back over .500.
However, it was not a pretty win. Philadelphia committed 20 turnovers, they saw Detroit cut a 22-point deficit down to just five, the Pistons went on a 16-1 run in the fourth, and it was a performance where coach Doc Rivers was left shaking his head with his team.
“We didn’t see open guys and tonight, from a coaching standpoint, just very frustrating because I thought we were trying to do the right things, we just kept shooting ourselves in the foot, turning it over in transition,” said Rivers. “I don’t know how many times in the New York game and in this game, 2-on-1’s, 3-on-2’s, we don’t even get shots at the basket, we’re turning the ball over. Those are the things that we have to fix because that’s a passing problem.”
Philadelphia allowed the Pistons to score 35 points in the fourth and while they scored 31, they turned the ball over four times, they allowed Detroit to shoot 7-for-11 from deep, and it was just another ugly finish.
“This was one of those games you were praying you can get through this game once you took them out,” Rivers added. “I thought there was the one stretch where the ball stopped moving, you can see me get the ball moving again, but once we got the ball movement back, we still made turnovers that you just, this was a frustrating, because they were simple. Give them credit, 12 of them maybe, but the other eight was on us. Those are things we have to take care of.”
Tyrese Maxey and Joel Embiid combined for eight turnovers as they had four each. That is a frustrating thing to handle as a team that still has aspirations of competing for a title.
“First and foremost, too many turnovers,” lamented Maxey after the game. “We turned the ball over too much. You can’t turn the ball over in the fourth quarter. I think that ignited their little run. We got to fix that.”
Philadelphia will continue the homestand on Saturday when they welcome in Trae Young and the Atlanta Hawks for a rematch of the semifinals from June. If Philadelphia is sloppy in that game as they were on Thursday against the Pistons, they will not have the same result of a win.
“We played well tonight, we were just sloppy on offense,” Rivers finished. “We had 20 turnovers. It actually tells you how well we played. It’s rare you win a game when the other team has 13 more shots than you and they did (Detroit had 10 more shots). We were fortunate.”
This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!
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