The Philadelphia 76ers again had an opportunity to win a game that was in their grasp. Instead, they let it slip away late as they could not get the stops necessary in a 118-114 loss to the Golden State Warriors on Saturday night.
The Warriors were able to get some easy baskets and get to the foul line led by rookie Eric Paschall and youngster Damion Lee. The Sixers, who pride themselves on defense, could not get it done at that end.
“It’s just frustrating, we couldn’t get stops there when we needed to,” said veteran Al Horford. “They just kept scoring at will, and we had some really good looks on offense that didn’t go down, but just defensively we need to be better.”
Golden State got some big shot-making from lesser-known players such as Paschall and Lee as well as Mychal Mulder. At the end of the day, it’s one of the more disappointing losses on the season. While Philadelphia was obviously shorthanded, the Warriors were missing Stephen Curry, Draymond Green, and Klay Thompson and the Sixers should have won this game.
“It wasn’t good as a collective,” said Tobias Harris. “Give them credit, they made shots. Late in the fourth quarter like the last five minutes, it seemed like they scored every single time they put the ball up. A little too many mistakes and those hurt us for sure.”
The Sixers were in a position for a 2-2 road trip, and they should have earned that second win, but they let it slip away with a poor defensive effort against a team that has been the worst in the league all year. Just mark this one down as another missed opportunity for this team on the road.
“Where I am going is with the group we have and we needed to play better defense and close out a game on the road and we didn’t do it,” said coach Brett Brown. “We can point at different things, but that is the bottom line. Trying to keep guys in front of you and we just couldn’t do it. I think this is a missed opportunity. You’re on the cusp of feeling how we should feel and it’s been a pretty good trip, but this is certainly a dampener for our guys.”
The Sixers are now sitting at the 6 seed in the Eastern Conference, which means they would begin the playoffs on the road, and that is a very unfavorable position for a team that has not been able to figure out on the road this season whether they have been healthy or not.
At the same time, if Ben Simmons, Joel Embiid, and Josh Richardson were playing, the Sixers probably win this game. It’s hard to really evaluate this team at the moment without those three out there. Until then, the Sixers continue to grind and figure this all out.
They host the Detroit Pistons on Wednesday looking to get back on track. [lawrence-related id=27330,27310,27300]