Overall on Friday night, the Philadelphia 76ers were unable to end their losing streak as they fell to the Houston Rockets 118-108 to conclude a nightmarish 0-4 road trip. However, when the opposition has a scoring machine like James Harden, you have to shrug your shoulders and move on.
Harden had 44 points, 11 rebounds, and 11 assists to lead Houston and his strong play helped set up a big night for Clint Capela who had 30 points and 14 rebounds. The Rockets were able to get out in transition and that allowed Capela to have the success he did with his ability to run the flor and take advantage of the lobs thrown by Harden.
“I didn’t think we did a good job in transition defense,” said Sixers coach Brett Brown. “I thought in the first half we were cool. Capela beat us up the floor a few times. I didn’t think we did a great job showing a crowd on James initially. I thought we fixed some of that in the second half, but in general, in the first half the transition defense was a ‘C’.”
Unfortunately, a “C” is not going to get the job done. Especially on a night where Philadelphia struggled shooting the ball again as they shot just 6-for-27 from deep on the night. Harden alone had six made threes on his own and that was another big concern for them.
“I mean, they made good looks, they got threes, they were also more physical than us,” said Tobias Harris. “Once you limit James’ threes he gets downhill and he had a bunch of lobs up to Capela. We had a lot of breakdowns tonight defensively and that’s on us as a group. We have to come in especially when you’re playing such a unique offensive team. You have to be ready even more locked in toward their schemes and whatnot.”
On top of his six made threes, Harden made 12 free throws as he continued to show off his elite scoring abilities.
“I thought in the beginning of the game we did a pretty good job of limiting his free throws, but then he got in a rhythm of drawing those fouls and being able to knock down threes,” Harris added. “I think on us we had a lot of mental breakdowns defensively in our game playing towards limiting him from shooting those types of threes and getting those looks, especially in transition. I think that’s where the majority of the game went really.”
Philadelphia is billed as an elite defensive team, but efforts like Friday night will not get it done. At times, this was a special case as Harden is just who he is and he’s a terrific player, but at the same time, they have to do better on a guy like Capela who you cannot allow scoring 30 points.
Now on a frustrating four-game skid, they will host the Oklahoma City Thunder on Monday looking to finally get back on track. They are an impressive 16-2 at home so they have that on their side. [lawrence-related id=22650,22639,22632]