The Philadelphia 76ers entered the Barclays Center on Thursday night on a high note. They were sitting 7-1 after winning five games in a row and they were playing good basketball on both ends of the floor.
It all came unraveled against a Brooklyn Nets team missing both Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving. The Sixers gave up 122 points in the loss and they also committed 20 turnovers, with 19 of them coming from the starters.
The Sixers trailed by as many as 18 and they worked their way back into it in the third quarter, but they would be undone by a string of bad possessions where they would turn the ball over and the Nets then got some easy looks.
“Poor execution and sloppiness,” said coach Doc Rivers. “In the second half, we got it to 10 how many times, eight one time and we would come down and turn the ball over three times in a row. That’s just sloppy basketball.”
Shake Milton, who got the start in place of the injured Seth Curry, led Philadelphia with 24 points and seven assists, but he also had three turnovers as it just seemed that the team did not have the right focus.
“I just don’t think we came out with the energy we needed to,” said Milton. “That’s pretty much it. Coach always says you can’t just turn it on and tonight was a real example of that. Just goes to show you can’t turn it on, you got to be ready for the job.”
Without Curry, the Sixers needed others to step up and provide the proper spacing. Veteran Danny Green hit three 3-pointers, but the rest of the team couldn’t get it going and that was something that held them back. The team shot 9-for-26 from deep after shooting it so well in the previous handful of games.
That is where the team must do other things to get into a rhythm.
“Drive the ball,” said Rivers. “One of the things I think we’ve done well this year is we don’t just settle for threes. You can tell where our focus or maybe even our legs were early because I think the first seven times we just caught and shot. I think we had five paint touches of drives in the first half. We usually have like 25. So it just told you where we were at tonight.”
Their ability to drive normally sets up a lot of their offense. The Sixes rely on penetration, kick-outs, and constant ball movement in order to find their best offense, but it wasn’t there in this one.
“There’s so many ways to get everybody else in a rhythm,” Green added. “I just think that the ball didn’t move like a normally did the last couple games tonight and I think that’s guys maybe getting antsy. Or maybe not taking it serious, I don’t know what it was.”
Joel Embiid, who had 38 points in their win over the Washington Wizards on Wednesday, had 20 points in this one, but there offensive possessions where he wouldn’t even touch the ball. They have to find a way to get it down to the big fella.
“There’s a couple of possessions where we just turned over losing the ball, kind of like the Cleveland game a little bit where it’s a little sloppy with just turnovers, unforced turnovers,” Green continued. “We’re just doing it our own, but we definitely got to drive more by getting more pick and rolls, not so much, just on the post but more pick-and-rolls, pick-and-pops, getting to the basket, and just give him space to work, running the floor, and him sealing.”
Either way, it’s only eight games into the season and there is still a lot of time to correct these things. Everything is still a learning process.
“We will figure it out, it’s still early season,” Green finished. “We’re not concerned, too worried. It’s a loss, we learned more from us losing than wins and I think we have an opportunity Saturday to bounce back. It is a very good ballclub coming in.”
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