Sixers blow another lead, stew over loss to Knicks with trade deadline near
Since starting this season 12-12, the Sixers have won 22 times and lost only six.
Zero of those defeats have been games in which the teams reasonable, consensus reaction was essentially, We played fine and missed some good looks. They played a little better. It happens.
On Dec. 27, head coach Doc Rivers was disappointed in the Sixers’ approach and thought the Wizards played so much harder. The Sixers allowed both CJ McCollum and Zach LaVine to make 11 three-pointers. They conceded 37 points to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and played a terrible third quarter in a home loss to the Thunder.
And on Sunday night in New York, the Sixers blew a 21-point lead for the second time in a week. While Rivers pushed back against the notion that the defeat fell entirely on the Sixers bench, he had a straightforward evaluation of his second units performance.
Well, I didnt think they played any defense, and they didnt pass to each other, he said.
After a tremendous Sixers start enhanced a tad by the Knicks opening 0 for 8 from three-point range, the bench indeed had a bad night. That led to severe plus-minus disparities like a plus-18 for Joel Embiid in his 36 minutes and a minus-26 for Shake Milton in his 10.
Rivers thought the game highlighted broader issues for the Sixers and didnt want to scapegoat the bench.
I was just really disappointed, he said. I thought, very similarly to the Orlando game and it happens (the bench) was watching the first group score every time. We were getting layups, wide-open shots, and I think they came in and thought thats the way they were going to play. You can tell when your group comes in and thinks offense, and I thought thats what we did tonight.
You lose the game when that happens. They know that. I just told them, Emotionally and mentally, thats our next step as a team. And I hate that the numbers make it look like it was (only) the bench. It was everybody. This wasnt just a bench loss, this was a team loss. And I made that clear to them. … I thought it was more mental and emotional than just playing basketball.
Rivers defended his decision to stick with an all-bench lineup to begin the fourth quarter.
Because weve been good at that, he said. Just because one half doesnt work, you dont vacate the unit. Thats what guys do who lose a lot. (The bench) didnt play well tonight. Honestly, I dont think thats why we lost the game. The game is not just explained by plus-minus sometimes; its more than that. Our starters came in and we still had the lead. I thought we were just not emotionally strong tonight. I thought they were the mentally tougher team and they deserved to win.
Though plus-minus numbers and lineup data obviously dont capture the full picture, the Sixers do have a plus-7.7 rating outside of garbage time in 191 possessions with Tyrese Maxey, Milton, Matisse Thybulle, Georges Niang and Montrezl Harrell on the court together, per Cleaning the Glass. Paul Reed took Harrells place in that lineup Sunday after the 2019-20 Sixth Man of the Year played just 3 minutes and 17 minutes in the first half.
The sporadically used Evan Fournier made five three-pointers off of New Yorks bench and Miles McBride sunk three. No second-unit Sixer hit any threes, which contributed to the team being unable to view its lapses in a winning light.
It starts with all of us, Embiid said. First of all, we cant put ourselves in those positions, give up those type of leads. Weve got to do the best job possible. But as a team, just got to keep following the game plan and keep playing hard. And I thought tonight, especially when they came back, it just felt like we werent playing as hard as we were at the beginning of the game. So you cant get too high, cant get too low. Youve always got to stay balanced.
Embiid grabbed a team-high 14 rebounds, but he also gave up a few key ones. The Knicks recorded 14 offensive boards as a team and dominated the glass down the stretch.
Going into the game, the one thing we wrote on the board was, We have to be the more physical team tonight. Clearly, we were not, Rivers said.
Tobias Harris postgame comments echoed his thoughts after the Sixers season ended last year with a bitter Game 6 loss to the Heat in the second round of the playoffs.
Really, they out-hustled us, got pretty much every single 50-50 ball, Harris said. Offensive rebounds were off the charts for them. Thats something that cant happen for our group going forward.
The Sixers signed PJ Tucker after that series defeat to Miami and hoped hed make them a tougher playoff team. Tucker helped the Sixers start hot at Madison Square Garden by defending newly minted All-Star Julius Randle well, and he also chipped in 10 points on 4-for-6 shooting.
The 37-year-old agreed with Rivers that the teams collective mindset was too relaxed following an ideal initial stint.
I dont know, Tucker said of why the Sixers had inferior physicality to the Knicks. Thats one of those things you never know. Its how the game goes sometimes. I know we cant have a lack of physicality like that and win.
We had a pretty easy start, and I almost hate when we get easy starts like that. Everybodys clicking, feeling good, the defense was clicking. And then we start making a couple of subs and everybody thinks its easy, and then the tide kind of changes. Id almost prefer to be down, which sounds weird. But at least everybodys antennas up, whereas when youre up 20-something, its different.
The next natural question for the Sixers is, “Whats next?” It wasnt a pleasant subject for players to consider with 30 games left in the regular season and just one Wednesday in Boston against the Eastern Conference-leading Celtics before the trade deadline Thursday afternoon.
Weve got to win these games, Harris said. We have to win games where its not necessarily going for us. We have to figure out ways as a collective group to understand, OK, we got away from what was working for us. Now lets gather ourselves and lets find some spark, lets find some energy to will our way through.
Sometimes youll have those nights and you still wont make the shots that you need, but the effort and the spirit is there. But we cant allow nights like this to just take us out of it, and just think, like, OK, well see them again or Well get on to the next game.
These are games, when you have those type of moments where you know you get away from whats working, to be able to will your way through and get a victory. Those are big-time games, meaningful games. And those are things that we need as a group, because we know were going to face that type of adversity come the playoffs and true, real basketball games. Learning lesson for us, but that doesnt happen overnight and we know we have a long way to go for that.
Rivers stressed that hes optimistic the Sixers can make the necessary progress, saying he can almost guarantee you well make that next step, but were just not there yet.
As Tucker acknowledged, though, its not as clear as a player firing more catch-and-shoot threes or tweaking his technique in pick-and-roll coverage.
I dont know if theres a certain thing you can do, he said. If that was the case, everybody would do it. Youve got it or you dont. Working on it is working on yourself in times where youre not getting shots or youre not scoring and doing stuff that fills the stat sheets. Its taking somebody off the glass. If this guys getting offensive rebounds, Im taking him off. Im not going to get the board, but hes not (either). That type of thing theres got to be more of that.
On a generally vexing night, James Harden provided perhaps the greatest level of simplicity postgame.
He was asked about the Mavericks reported trade with the Nets for Kyrie Irving, his former teammate in Brooklyn.
Its a trade that happened, Harden said.
