The Philadelphia 76ers have a lot of talent on their team, but whenever MVP candidate Joel Embiid can’t go, the team continues to fall off a cliff. They fell to the Eastern Conference worst Detroit Pistons on Monday 119-104 after spotting the Pistons a 15-point lead in the opening quarter.
They were not able to match with Detroit’s shooting and they were out-rebounded 47-36. They did not have the right sense of urgency in this one and it showed from the jump.
“I don’t think we came out ready in the right way,” said coach Doc Rivers. “Defensively, we weren’t organized. The first play of the game, they hit a 3. A play that we worked on. To me, that told me something about us that I didn’t like, but you know again we can’t take those back, it happens.”
The main culprit was, once again, Wayne Ellington. After the Pistons sharpshooter scored 17 points on Saturday, he knocked down six more 3s on Monday and he scored 20 points. Combine that with Delon Wright adding 28 points, nine assists, and seven rebounds, and his four shots from deep, it made for a tough night.
“I thought there were many times in the game we had a chance to find ourselves back in it,” Rivers added. “The one thing, and the team has to know this, you don’t have a Joel or a Ben playing or whoever is not playing, any of your key guys, you spot a team 15, it’s going to be hard to win that game and I thought tonight was a great example of that.”
Tyrese Maxey had a solid game off the bench pouring in 17 points and he played solid defense, but there were plenty of times where he looked lost as well. This was just a tough night all-around for Philadelphia while missing Embiid.
“We just gotta start faster,” said Maxey. “We gotta go out there knowing Joel’s not playing and not changing our game. We gotta be a lot more aggressive and get into the paint and doing different things like that to speed the game up.”
The best offense the Sixers could come up with was when the team was able to get out in transition and run. Without Embiid on the floor, they did not have the right execution out there in a half-court setting without the safety valve of Embiid down low.
The Sixers have to hope the big fella can return on Wednesday when they take on the defending champion Los Angeles Lakers back at home.
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