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Thursday night, the Philadelphia 76ers had arguably their most anticipated matchup of the regular season. For the first time since the swapping of All-Stars of the trade deadline, the Sixers would host Kevin Durant and the Brooklyn Nets on national television.
As expected, emotions were running high before the game even began. Fans poured into the arena early at the chance to see Ben Simmons and voice their opinion. While the former Sixers has still yet to debut for Brooklyn, he joined his new team on the bench.
Any chance of sweet for revenge ended quickly for the Sixers. Between them stumbling out the gates and Brooklyn shooting above 60% from the floor, things got out of hand in a hurry. Thanks to strong showings from Durant and Kyrie Irving, the Nets jumped out to a big lead early and never looked back. When all was said and done they walked out of the Wells Fargo Center with a 129-100 victory.
After the game, players and coaches opened up on what went wrong against their conference rival. First up was Doc Rivers, who cited lack of intensity and physicality as two key issues for the Sixers.
“I just thought they played harder. They were more aggressive. They played in our air space all night. I thought they were the more physical team all night. It was a great example of a team who hasn't been together,” said Rivers.
Tobias Harris later echoed some of Rivers' points while also pointing out the team's lack of defense against Brooklyn's offensive barrage.
“From the start, our defense wasn't there. It wasn't there all night, actually. We had no intensity defensively, ball wasn't moving, we didn't do a great job of making the extra pass. That combined with missing shots just tallies up. From then on, it was tough for us to actually gain a flow and a rhythm there to cut the lead,” Harris said postgame.
James Harden was the final speaker of the night and essentially chalked things up to the Sixers not bringing the energy they needed for a high-profile matchup like this.
“I just think for the entire game we didn't have the pop that we needed to. Turning the ball over too much, which gave them a lot of easy points. Not even like contested points, just easy layups, threes, and dunks. They made some tough shots early, which we expected. Offensively, the last five games, we've been playing well. The ball has been moving. Tonight, it just didn't move as much as we needed it to. Combination of them making shots and the ball not moving helped them offensively,” said Harden.
It's safe to say that after a brutal loss like this, the honeymoon phase is over for the new-look Sixers. This matchup showed there is still a lot of work to be done before the playoffs go underway.
At this point, all the Sixers can do is learn from this outing and move on. There is no sense dwelling on a loss like this in the final month of the regular season. They will have two days off to recuperate before traveling to Orlando in hopes of getting back on track.
