The Philadelphia 76ers had a chance out in San Francisco on Friday night. Despite missing James Harden, Jalen McDaniels, and Danuel House Jr., the Sixers were right there with the defending champion Golden State Warriors late.
Joel Embiid was phenomenal as he threw the Sixers on his back in order to keep them close, but he seemed to run out of gas in a 120-112 loss to the Warriors. He scored 15 of his 46 points in the fourth, but he missed two critical shots late that he was making earlier as he appeared to just run out of juice.
“I thought Joel was great all night,” coach Doc Rivers told reporters. “I didn’t like shot selections other than Joel most of the night. I thought a lot of times, we got into the paint, we could have made extra passes, and we’ve been a great passing team. We just didn’t do that tonight and sometimes you want to beat a team, and you start trying each guy try to do it themselves.”
Tobias Harris was terrific as he had 23 points on 10-for-12 shooting and Tyrese Maxey had 21 points, but a big difference was 3-point shooting. Golden State shot 18-for-50 from deep while Philadelphia was at 8-for-29. Harris only took one 3, which he made, and he could have taken some more looks from deep.
On top of that Jordan Poole scored 19 of his 33 points in the fourth quarter and Philadelphia just wasn’t able to respond.
“Then defensively, I thought was where we were just shallow,” Rivers continued. “Not having D-House, not having Jalen, we didn’t have enough guys defensively. Their bench really hurt us. Poole had an amazing game. We needed more length on the floor. We just didn’t have the guys.”
Then there were the non-Embiid minutes. The Sixers struggled without him on the floor as the Warriors took advantage of that time. The big fella was a plus-13 in a game the Sixers lost by eight.
“Obviously, not having James,” Rivers continued. “James usually starts the second quarter so you have more offense on the floor. We had Tyrese out there by himself with guys and we didn’t run good offense.”
As of late, the bench has done a good job of staying afloat when Embiid gets his rest, but that’s with Harden on the floor. Without The Beard, that wasn’t the case in The Bay.
“That group, overall, this year I would say for the most part, we get a lot of continuity,” Rivers finished. “We run a lot of stuff. Tonight (Friday), we just didn’t do it, and when you don’t have Joel or James on the floor, you have to run continuity. We didn’t do that tonight.”
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