PHILADELPHIA — Given the chance to be the first team to stop the New York Knicks following their acquisition of OG Anunoby, the Philadelphia 76ers folded like a chair. The Sixers competed hard to start the game but were unable to overcome New York's insane shooting and relentless physicality, suffering one of their worst losses of the season.

Joel Embiid continued his streak of 30-point-10-rebound performances and Tyrese Maxey had a nice showing with 27 points and nine assists. Still, the Sixers had a steep hill to climb with the Knicks making hard shot after hard shot, even from beyond the arc. Continuous haymakers in the form of second-chance points, tough buckets from Jalen Brunson and fast breaks kept Philly from conquering the slope. By the fourth quarter, all they could do was tumble down and listen as the Wells Fargo Center air filled with cheering New York fans.

“I just think they hit us in the mouth early,” Maxey said. “We actually, we were up early. But they hit us in the mouth and that at the end of that first, and then seemed like we were on our heels ever since then from the game. There's a couple clips that that coach showed that they hit us first when we were on defense and we shouldn't allow that to happen.”

The Sixers led by 10 in the first quarter but ended up surrendering 75 points in the first half while scoring just 55 themselves. Even though they knew they would be in for a hard-fought game, they couldn’t muster up the intensity to keep up.  The Knicks' defense was extremely difficult to pierce and their efforts on the boards gave them extra chances to put their shooting groove to use.

“We know ourselves and we know that it starts on defense,” Embiid said. “Tonight, we were not good enough. Gotta get better defensively. But then again, it’s one game. It happens. They were hot. We were not. We were not at our best and we’re gonna be fine.”

Nick Nurse pinpointed a part of the fourth quarter when the Sixers were down 13 and had a chance to go down by 10 but couldn’t take advantage. Failing to swing the momentum further doomed Philly on a night when their offense generated too few threes and missed too many of the ones they managed to get. “Everything seemed to be not bouncing our way,” he said.

The Sixers, in Nurse's eyes, failed to take advantage of their chances in transition on top of missing shots they typically make. The numbers agree. Per Cleaning the Glass, Philly's efficiency in transition was abysmal — 17th percentile in points per 100 possessions on such plays. New York was in the 99th.

“Yeah, we missed a lot of easy layups, myself included,” Maxey said. “We just missed some shots that we normally make — easy layups, wide-open threes — and that hurt us. That hurt us tonight. It's extremely hard when they're making shots and you finally start getting stops. You have to execute on the other end. And then, we couldn't make shots.”

The Knicks making an abundance of tough shots and the Sixers missing key rotation players (plus losing starter Tobias Harris ahead of the fourth quarter) suggests that this game truly was a one-off. In those aspects, it was. But this game showed that Philly is far from invincible. This game could serve not just as a wake-up call to the team but to the front office that the roster still very much needs more talent to go on a deep playoff run.

The Sixers have no time to pout over the defeat. They’re back in action tomorrow against the Utah Jazz. Maxey said that the back-to-back “100 percent” makes it easier to move on from the loss to the Knicks.

“It helps a lot,” he said. “I mean, now you have to forget about it. You can't dwell on it. Don't have like a two- or three-day break to where you can go and sit on it and can't wait to get back on. That's the good part about the NBA. We play in less than 24 hours and we get a chance to redeem ourselves.”