PHILADELPHIA — The Philadelphia 76ers had a tough night on Friday as they fell to the New Orleans Pelicans 103-95. They fell behind by as many as 35 and trailed 36-15 after the first quarter. It was a tough night all around for everybody.
Paul Reed, who hopped off the bench and had 17 points and 11 rebounds, was a key factor in Philadelphia getting back into things in the second half. Reed and the Sixers cut the deficit down to a mere six points with 1:24 remaining, but the Pelicans got the job done late.
After the loss, Reed was asked what the keys are to bottling up the second-half effort and carrying it with them forward.
“Just knowing that, you know, the referees are gonna be the referees and we’re gonna have to beat them too, you know?” said Reed. “So we got to already be expecting that.”
Now, the officiating wasn’t the reason why the Sixers got down by 35. Philadelphia’s offensive execution was poor and it couldn’t knock down any open looks in the early going.
However, there was one critical call in the fourth quarter that went the way of New Orleans when it appeared that Herb Jones stepped out of bounds before he threw it off Cam Payne who was already out of bounds. That would have given the Sixers a better chance at rallying in this one.
With that being said, Philadelphia has to start the game much better than it did in this one. The key is to make sure the Sixers start better and not wait until halftime to get going.
“I mean, as a player, you can only control what you can control,” Reed added. “As a player, you can’t really dictate what the whole team does. None of us are in that position except the head coach. For us, we just got to follow his lead and try to execute the game plan to the best of our capabilities and so we had a slow start. I’m pretty sure everybody was trying to execute. I mean, it’s not a bad team. Guys out there are good. It’s tough when we start slow like that.”
The Sixers will begin a 3-game road trip when they take on the New York Knicks on Sunday.
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