The Philadelphia 76ers gave themselves a chance on the road on Friday when they took on the Cleveland Cavaliers. The Sixers did not shoot the ball well. They shot 44.7% from the floor compared to 54.9% for Cleveland, but the Sixers had a chance.
Philadelphia outrebounded Cleveland, 42-37, and had 24 second-chance points to stay in the game. However, the Cavaliers walked away with the 117-114 win as the Sixers were unable to overcome their poor shooting.
Tyrese Maxey shot 7-for-26 from the floor, but the Sixers received 23 points and six assists from Kyle Lowry. Mo Bamba added 14 points and seven rebounds while Tobias Harris had 21 points and seven boards.
“I don’t think we played that great,” coach Nick Nurse told reporters after the loss. “I mean, I know we hung out hung around, and hung in there. We got a huge night from Kyle and Mo in the second half basically for sure, but I thought we had some stretches where we just didn’t — too many stretches where we just didn’t do the right things defensively. We bogged down a little bit offensively as well, but we kept fighting and hanging in there and I just didn’t think we played quite well enough to get to get that tonight.”
Nurse isn’t wrong. The Sixers didn’t play all that great. The offense sputtered, again, and there were some stretches where the defense wasn’t as sharp as it should have been.
“I know we had a chance and all,” Nurse continued. “We probably needed that (Evan) Mobley 3 to not go in and we probably would’ve had a real good chance but again, it goes that way. I say that all the time. Not everybody’s gonna play good all the time and some other guys stepped up so we certainly need that.”
Nurse is referring to the 3-pointer Mobley hit with 28.2 seconds left to give Cleveland the lead for good. The Cavaliers wound up with a number of open 3s. Especially, former Sixer Georges Niang who had 25 points and hit five triples off the bench.
“I just think that he was really in the right place at the right time a lot and even when we changed coverages a few times, it just didn’t really work,” Nurse said of Niang. “Then we made a big mistake on him once when we when we did switch coverage. So you just can’t make those mistakes on a guy like that. Especially, when he’s already got it going. We made a big mistake on one coverage and left him all alone in the corner, but he’s one of the best shooters in the league. He had a super game against his old team for sure.”
The Sixers will head to Canada to take on the Toronto Raptors on Sunday.
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