The Philadelphia 76ers were back on their home floor Sunday night, looking to build more positive momentum into the postseason. Next up on the schedule was a meeting with Pascal Siakam and the Toronto Raptors.
This game turned out to be a tale of two stories. In the first act, the Sixers looked well on their way to easily taking care of business. They scored 37 points in the opening quarter and found themselves with a comfortable lead. After the opening 12 minutes, things quickly began to go downhill.
After notching nearly 40 points in the first, the Sixers would only muster 51 points through the final three quarters. The Raptors took full advantage of this meltdown and got things back within striking distance. When all was said and done, they managed to walk out of Philadelphia with a 93-88 victory.
Following the tough loss, head coach Doc Rivers opened up on where he felt things went wrong for his team Sunday. One of the key areas he cited was an all-around lack of execution on the offensive end.
“Just stagnant, no ball movement, ran nothing the entire night…Didn't move the ball, didn't do much. Didn't execute anything, even out of timeouts. We just had a very poor executing night offensively,” said Rivers.
Lack of ball movement is something that has hurt the Sixers in the past and reared its ugly head again in this matchup. After sharing the ball and getting scoring from everywhere in the first quarter, they just seemed to go away from what was working and fell into old habits. Rivers felt the lack of ball movement led to poor quality shots for guys like Joel Embiid and Tobias Harris.
“When you don't move the ball, you're not going to get good shots. Walk the ball up the floor, we had no pace to the game. Just the entire way we played tonight other than the first eight minutes, nine minutes was poor,” Rivers said postgame.
Another weak point for the Sixers this season has been on the glass. Given their roster makeup, the Raptors have an abundance of size and length to punish teams who don't rebound well. Rivers mentioned this was something the team talked about heading into the game but poorly executed once they took the floor.
“We knew that coming into the game…We didn't execute that. We talked about it all day about you have to go block them out first and then turn. Instead, we turned. They're bigger, they're longer, so if you turn, they're just going to jump over your back to keep the ball alive, and that's what they did,” he said.
Not much went right for the Sixers on Sunday, but there is not much they can do at this point to change. This late in the year, there is no sense dwelling on a matchup like this. Luckily for them, they have a quick chance to wash the taste of this game from their mouth. All their focus should be on getting back on track to face the conference-lead Miami Heat in the second leg of this back-to-back.
Follow Us
Subscribe