The Philadelphia 76ers were taking on one of the tougher teams in the league in the Los Angeles Clippers on the road on Saturday and they were continuing to do while shorthanded. They did not have the services of superstar big man Joel Embiid and that means they had to play near-perfect basketball.
They had done a good job without Embiid so far as they won six of their first seven games without him, but on Saturday, too many turnovers and mistakes cost them in a 122-112 loss to the Clippers.
Philadelphia committed 16 turnovers on the night which Los Angeles turned into 17 points. Six of those turnovers came from Ben Simmons and four of them came from Tobias Harris as the Sixers had a tough time really getting things going on their end of the floor.
“It was us trying to do too much with the ball,” said coach Doc Rivers. “It’s funny, I thought it was a very poor offensive night, yet we had 112 and we shot almost 51%, which means our standards are very high. I just didn’t like the way we looked offensively. As far as our spacing or rolling and our picking. Again, nothing to worry about, but we did have that tonight.”
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To Rivers’ point, the Sixers did have a solid offensive night. They shot 50.6% from the floor and they even shot 10-for-26 from deep. However, the 16 turnovers didn’t help things and the Clippers held a 12-0 advantage in fast break points for the game.
“I thought a lot of it had to do with indecision offensively for us and certain matchups,” said Harris. “They present a lot of length out there on the floor with the guys they have and versatility so they were able to kind of rush us in certain areas.”
The Clippers have a lot of guys who present a lot of problems to that point and the Sixers had some trouble executing their offense. Kawhi Leonard is such a problem with his defensive instincts and the way he can make plays on the ball. There were plenty of times where he was able to get a steal and then be able to get easy baskets in transition. That is tough to overcome.
“That was a key thing for us going into the game was taking care of the basketball and not letting them get out with turnovers and whatnot,” Harris finished. “I think that was a big thing that led to them, getting on runs and being able to hold those leads tonight.”
The Sixers will now move on to face the Denver Nuggets on Tuesday to continue the road trip.
This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!
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