The Philadelphia 76ers got back to work on Monday night when they opened up the preseason slate with a tough 123-107 loss to the Toronto Raptors on the road. The Sixers were without Joel Embiid and Tobias Harris while also still playing without Ben Simmons so it was not exactly a surprising loss considering everything.
With that being said, there are some concerns that jump out for coach Doc Rivers.
A big one that jumps out is that Toronto looked like they were the quicker bunch. They seemed to have more energy out on the floor and they were able to get out and run much more often than Philadelphia could. The Sixers lacked a bit in transition defense and that bothered Rivers.
“A couple things,” Rivers started. “Number one, I thought conditioning. I thought they were in better shape than us. That’s the first thing I saw. Transition D, I thought they beat us down the floor, a lot of that could be due to conditioning, and a lot of that is due to discipline, getting back, getting loaded, and then keeping the ball in front of us. And again, that can be conditioning as well.”
Then one can look at the rebounding totals and see that Toronto finished with 57 rebounds compared to 40 for Philadelphia. That is a big number despite 14 rebounds from Andre Drummond and 10 from Paul Reed off the bench. The Sixers did not have the size to match up with Toronto on the glass.
“I still look at our roster, though I do worry about our size,” Rivers added. “Joel goes out of a game, Tobias not [out there] and we don’t have a lot after that, we get small quick. One thing I thought stood out was their length. Even at the guards, all their players are long and athletic, and I thought we had a lot of short guys on the floor. There were times when our guards are inside on rebounds and they still got them because of their length and size so that’s a concern.”
Then, there is the point guard play. The Sixers are moving on without Simmons to turn to and now, they have to be able to rely on younger guards such as Tyrese Maxey, Shake Milton, and even non-traditional ball-handlers at that point. That meant a lot of sloppy play and it allowed the Raptors to get out and run a bit.
“Then the other thing is just the guard play, more point guard play,” the coach finished. “We got to be able to space the floor, run our stuff. Again, we don’t have a lot of stuff in. So we knew that they would struggle through some of that and then the last thing is just the bad turnovers.”
The Sixers will get back to work before hosting these same Raptors on Thursday at the Wells Fargo Center.
This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!
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