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The Philadelphia 76ers had themselves a game to forget against the Indiana Pacers. With Tyrese Haliburton sidelined and two days of rest, the Sixers still laid a massive egg in a road defeat. It was the rare game where Joel Embiid sat out the fourth quarter due to a blowout he suffered, not delivered.
Embiid still tallied 31 points and Tyrese Maxey had 22 points and some nice finishes at the hoop in a game where the 76ers shot 5-21 from deep in the first three quarters and put up a flat showing on defense. A triple-double from Pascal Siakam powered an intense, energetic performance from Indiana.
“We kind of weathered the storm in that first half and then they hit us again in the second half,” Maxey said to reporters in Indiana, adding that Nick Nurse “felt like we kind of gave in, or conceded defeat. But we got to do better with that. That’s a team that’s a difficult team to play. They play fast, they execute on your mistakes and then get out and run.”
The Pacers led by just 12 points at halftime despite completely owning the game. Nurse, who said his team was “pretty bad” in the first half, recognized that the deficit was more than manageable but couldn’t get the 76ers in the right groove to make a comeback.
“You go through this sometimes,” Nurse said. “Both Pat Bev [Patrick Beverley] and Nico [Batum] coming back off illness as well. Give 'em credit for going out there and trying to do what they can. I still think you gotta play a little better and guard a little better. We just didn’t have any kind of defensive success. We were chasing the game right from the start.”
The 76ers won’t have it much easier in their next game when they face the Denver Nuggets, though there is a chance the superstar big men miss out on the game. Embiid tweaked his knee earlier in the loss to the Pacers — he remained in the game and Nurse said he wasn’t aware of any issue with it afterward — and Nikola Jokic was poked in the eye in his own road blowout loss to the New York Knicks.
