The Philadelphia 76rs returned home on Thursday to host a severely shorthanded Portland Trail Blazers team that was missing their starting center as well as their explosive backcourt. The game seemed set up for them to keep the momentum going after a 3-0 road trip.
Instead, they tripped up and they fell to the Blazers 121-105 at home without Ben Simmons. Even without Simmons, this is a game that the team probably should have won considering how many players were out for Portland.
Joel Embiid led the way with 37 points with 25 coming in the second quarter as he tried to keep Philadelphia in it, but they were not able to come away with a win in this one.
“I say this respectfully, but tonight was just a bad loss,” said a dejected Embiid. “The way we played, defensively, we had no energy. They were more physical than us. Then offensively, we just had no offense. I think at one point in the fourth, we were 3-for-20 from 3. It’s hard to win a game when you should bad when you come out with the defensive effort that we didn’t have. They’re a great team, but we could have at least made it a game.”
Of course, the lack of defensive energy could be due to Simmons’ absence, but that is not an excuse when considering all of the offensive weapons the Blazers were missing. It was a struggle for Philadelphia to even keep the game tied at halftime as they needed Embiid to be at another level just to do that.
Portland then started the third quarter on a 14-0 run that essentially ended the game.
“We just didn’t have energy,” said coach Doc Rivers. “We didn’t have it all game and teams know that, they feel it. I thought in the third quarter, I guarantee you, they talked about it at halftime, like this team is dead on their feet right now, man. Let’s try to push this lead up and that’s exactly what happened.”
This has been in the middle of a tough stretch of games for Philadelphia. They just finished up a 3-game road trip and they are in the middle of a three games in four nights stretch.
“As much as I hate to say it, I think this is just something that happens,” said Matisse Thybulle. “I think there’s some days where you can’t find it or you lose it and it’s hard to get back. There’s so many games that these things usually even themselves out and they’re few and far between. We try to keep it away.”
This really is just one of those games where one has to chalk it up to a bad night. Over the course of a long season, nights like these will happen and it is up to them to learn from it.
“What I think, at the end of the day, overall we didn’t have a good spirit today off the back-to-back,” added Furkan Korkmaz. “Back-to-backs are hard to play. I think we didn’t focus enough, we didn’t give 100%.”
The Sixers now prepare for the Brooklyn Nets on Saturday at home.
This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!
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