The Philadelphia 76ers were faced with a challenge at Target Center when they visited the Minnesota Timberwolves on Wednesday. The game was the second night of a back-to-back and followed an overtime battle at home on Tuesday. They were missing Joel Embiid due to a hip issue.
The result was the Sixers taking a wire-to-wire loss, 112-99, to drop to 10-5 on the season. Minnesota led by as many as 21 and scored 58 points in the paint.
Coach Nick Nurse started Marcus Morris Sr. in place of Embiid rather than turning to a more conventional option such as Paul Reed or Mo Bamba.
Morris played 16 minutes on Wednesday and had 16 points while knocking down three 3s.
“I just wanted to give us a chance to have five guys on the floor to space the floor and give us some spacing,” Nurse told reporters after the loss. “It looked really good to start the second half with that lineup, right? It didn’t quite work out in the first, but I thought he had a good game.”
Nurse is correct about the start of the second half. Philadelphia stretched the floor and moved Rudy Gobert out of the paint, allowing the Sixers to work their way back into the game.
However, Morris had too many issues with Gobert and Karl-Anthony Towns on the other end of the floor. He gave a terrific effort, but one can’t teach height.
“He stretched them a little bit,” Nurse added. “I thought he was physical, used his fouls like we wanted him to in there. He’s a good physical player. He was outsized, but I thought he fought hard, and, obviously again, it’s also a chance for us to look at him.”
Morris played sparingly in his previous seven games with the Sixers. Wednesday offered the first real chance for Nurse to evaluate his game. His play on Wednesday could be the beginning of unlocking something of a small ball 5 lineup for Philadelphia in the future.
“We just haven’t had hardly any chance to play him,” Nurse finished. “So it was a good chance to get him some rhythm and get him out there and see what he can do. That may be like talking about small ball 5, that may be a good place for him at some point.”
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