PHILADELPHIA–There was a lot of hype heading into a big matchup between the Philadelphia 76ers and the Brooklyn Nets on Thursday night at the Wells Fargo Center. It was the first matchup between the two teams since the big trade that sent James Harden to Philadelphia and Ben Simmons to Brooklyn.
While Simmons didn’t play in this one, although the crowd let him know about their displeasure all night long, the focus was on Harden facing his old Nets team for the first time since the trade. With all eyes on him, The Beard struggled in a 129-100 loss to the Nets.
Harden shot only 3-for-17 and he had 11 points with six rebounds and five assists while also having four turnovers.
“Just miss shots,” said Harden. “There’s no excuses. I gotta be better individually. Some turnovers were just careless. Individually, I gotta be better and as a team, I’ll watch film to see where can we be better and we’ll just continue to improve. This is only our sixth game together as a unit. I’m still trying to figure things out.”
The Nets were blitzing Harden all night long and sending waves of defenders at him in what was an overall just tough game.
“They doubled, they trapped, but teams have been doing that,” said coach Doc Rivers. “They were so much more physical. That was the only thing I thought we succumbed to their physicality tonight. When you see guys running through dribble handoffs, that’s a problem. That should never happen and I’m gonna say nine times that happened tonight. It’s something we’ll look at the film and we’ll fix.”
With that being said, it wasn’t just Harden who struggled in this one. Matisse Thybulle shot 1-for-5, Tyrese Maxey was 2-for-7, and even Joel Embiid was 5-for-17 from the floor in this one. Shake Milton was 0-for-6 off the bench.
“It wasn’t just James,” Rivers finished. “I don’t think it was just James. The whole team struggled. I struggled. Everybody struggled. We win together as a team, we lose together as a team, but I don’t think it was just James. I thought it was everybody that struggled. Part of it was we didn’t space, we didn’t move the ball. Everybody wanted to win the game, but we didn’t understand you have to play together to win the game so that’s a good lesson for us.”
This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!
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