The Philadelphia 76ers were playing extremely shorthanded against one of the tougher, more physical teams in the league in the form of the New York Knicks. They are a team that challenges opponents on an every-night basis and the Sixers had a tough time in a 103-96 loss at home.
New York built a 19-point lead in the first half as they took advantage of a shorthanded Sixers team that was playing their fourth game in six nights. Philadelphia also has to get ready to take on the Milwaukee Bucks on Tuesday as they were set to begin a back-to-back in their schedule.
“In the first half, I thought we got unbelievable open shots,” said coach Doc Rivers. “You could just see the heavy legs. This was our fifth game in six nights. Tomorrow will be our sixth game in nine nights, shorthanded so it is what it is.”
Rivers got his math a bit wrong, but the point still remains. The Sixers have been playing a lot of games in a short amount of time and they have had to dig deep in a lot of these games. They shot only 35.4% from the floor in the first half compared to 51.1% for New York. That was a big reason why they were down big early in this one.
Despite all of that, the Sixers still rallied and they were able to pull to within 89-88 late so they were still able to stick with it and play tough basketball.
“Just playing basketball, playing together,” said Seth Curry. “Just try to stick to it for 48 minutes. It’s a tough team over there, they muck up the game, we just ran out of bodies for real.”
A big reason for that was Knicks star Julius Randle made a lot of big plays down the stretch. He had 10 points in the fourth quarter that put the Sixers away for a New York team that was on the second night of their own back-to-back.
“I think at the end of the game, we looked like we had a back-to-back because they were coming from a back-to-back,” said Furkan Korkmaz. “We were the younger team on the court. We could have pushed the ball more, we could have made them more tired like making more plays, but they played hard. It’s hard to play against them because they are so physical. I don’t think, especially at the end, we were physical enough. That cost the game.”
A big reason why Philadelphia was able to work its way back into it was due to the fact that they were able to get big plays out of guys like Danny Green and Georges Niang, but it was still too much for them to overcome considering the circumstances.