The Philadelphia 76ers had a ton of hype going into the Orlando restart. They made a splashy change to the starting lineup by inserting young Shake Milton over Al Horford and moving Ben Simmons over to the power forward spot. They looked good in their three scrimmage games, but then the game counted for real and it was rough.
The Sixers faced a Pacers team missing All-Star Domantas Sabonis as well as former Rookie of the Year Malcolm Brogdon and they were lit up by T.J. Warren who scored a career-high 53 points. It all resulted in a 127-121 loss despite 41 points and 21 rebounds from Joel Embiid and Tobias Harris pouring in 30 points.
“Some humble pie for us to be honest,” said Harris. “To really affirm to us that any team at any time can have a really good game and beat you. We had leads in the game that we should have been able to hold on to, but we didn’t give enough to continue to push that momentum forward.”
The Sixers committed 21 turnovers on the night–14 coming in the first half–and they were not able to hold on to a double-digit lead. Shake Milton had a rough night going scoreless and committing three turnovers and Simmons committed four turnovers as well.
“It just goes to show we’ve got to be able to take care of the basketball,” Harris added. “We’ve got to be able to be locked in with one another. It’s the first game back and we’ve got to be better and we’ve got to improve. That’s pretty much it.”
Coach Brett Brown looked down at the stat sheet after the game was over and frowned over Warren’s night, but his main guys of Embiid, Harris, and Simmons all had some good games and that is something that he is happy with moving forward.
“Joel did what he had to do,” explained Brown. “He brought it upon himself to try and get us a win, oftentimes, on his own back. I thought Tobias played well, I thought Joel was dominant, I thought Ben had a good game. Those three players, you would look at a stat sheet and by the eye test, they were pretty good. We needed more contributors, we didn’t get it and it can’t just rest solely on those three players’ doorstep. We’re going to need more help starting with playing better defense.”
The Sixers will take on the San Antonio Spurs on Monday to continue their season resumption. [lawrence-related id=35982,35975,35959]