The Philadelphia 76ers were supposed to hang their hat on defense in the 2019-20 season. The moves they made in the offseason, like bringing in Al Horford for example, were supposed to help the Sixers in that regard.
In Monday’s loss to the Miami Heat, the Sixers yielded a season-high 137 points and gave up 81 points in the second half. It was absolutely poor and the team is concerned with their effort level on that end of the floor.
“I thought that our defense was poor,” said coach Brett Brown. “When you create three turnovers over the course of an entire game, it does not show a reflection of who we are. I think that the 3-point shots in the second half was where the game got away from us…I just felt like we needed to have a little bit more bite, but that we just did not have it tonight.”
Jimmy Butler had a huge game for the Heat scoring 38 points on 14-for-20 shooting and he got the foul line eight times and knocking all eight of them down. So, you give some credit to him, but the way the Sixers have defended on this road trip has been poor. They gave up 127 points to the Atlanta Hawks to begin this trip and then 116 to the Celtics before Monday’s effort.
It’s hard to pinpoint the main issue with them.
“I’m not sure exactly,” said Joel Embiid. “We weren’t able to guard our own man. It starts with keeping the ball in front of yourself and we have not been able to do that.”
The Sixers did a solid job in the first half. They did give up 56 points in the opening half, but Miami is a good offensive team and they have the shooters to keep their offense humming. The second half was where things completely fell apart.
“It starts with defense,” Embiid added. “Just keeping the ball in front of you. Guards have been killing us the last couple of games so we’ve got to do a better job of stopping the ball.”
It really seemed like once the Heat got going, it was a wrap for Philadelphia. They were not able to stop the bleeding and that killed any chance at rallying to win.
“We weren’t able to find that defensive energy,” said Tobias Harris. “I thought in the first half we did a pretty good job. Then in the second half, we were nonexistent all around. We fouled them too much which sent them to the line. They made a lot of jump shots. We just never really made our mark, especially in the second half.”
The defensive effort has got to be better. It doesn’t get any easier for them as they finish up the road trip on Thursday with a visit to the Milwaukee Bucks. They need to win that one to avoid a disheartening winless trip. [lawrence-related id=24883,24875,24856]