The Philadelphia 76ers have proven themselves a tough-minded team. Led by the new culture coach Doc Rivers has instilled, the team has succeeded on a nightly basis no matter the challenge.
On Saturday, the Sixers seemed to wilt a bit. They lost their composure by picking up four technical fouls and the defensive effort was not there in a loss to the Los Angeles Clippers. The performance was a little uncharacteristic for Philadelphia this season.
As they get set to continue the road trip on Tuesday against the Denver Nuggets, some aspects of the game need to be improved upon. Philadelphia allowed the Clippers to get open for too many looks from deep and to get into a groove quickly.
“Just starting with getting back to our defense,” said Tobias Harris. “Really, tonight (Saturday), we know they have a lot of guys who shoot the basketball really well so that kind of led to spacing us out on the floor, not being able to help as much as we want it to, but going forward, next game, we got to get back to our physicality defensively.”
(function (d, s, n) {
var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];
js = d.createElement(s);
js.className = n;
js.src = “//player.ex.co/player/d8b9c085-4226-44f1-8495-36ad4e2aa62d”;
fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);
}(document, ‘script’, ‘exco-player’));
Their lack of defensive effort hurt the Sixers on the offensive end. The Sixersshot 51% from the floor and they were 10-for-26 from deep, but Philadelphia had a rough go at it in the third quarter and that is what ultimately led to a loss.
Los Angeles shot 5-for-9 from deep in the third while Philadelphia was 0-for-6 and it was an overall tough time for them on the defensive end.
“Offensively, we gotta just do a better job finishing out there, making shots, and continuing to move the ball all around,” Harris added. “We know from the beginning how good we are as a team when we get stops. Tonight, we just didn’t find a great enough job of getting those stops and getting out of transition. That kind of hurt us.”
The Sixers will face the Nuggets on Tuesday as they will look to correct some of these mistakes.
This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!
[mm-video type=playlist id=01f09kz5ecxq9bp57b player_id=01f1jxkahtwnvzepyp image=https://sixerswire.usatoday.com/wp-content/plugins/mm-video/images/playlist-icon.png]
[lawrence-related id=44068,44065,44062]