Multiple Sixers try to explain the slow start in blowout loss to Nets
PHILADELPHIA–The Philadelphia 76ers had a lot of things going for them on Thursday night. They were at home coming off an impressive win over the Chicago Bulls, they were rolling with James Harden and Joel Embiid as a duo, and the crowd was electric as they welcomed Ben Simmons back to Philadelphia.
The Brooklyn Nets then hit them in the mouth in the first quarter to lead 40-23 on their way to a 129-100 win over the Sixers where they led by as many as 36. Brooklyn had eight assists in the first quarter compared to just one for Philadelphia and they shot 65.4% compared to 27.3% for the Sixers. A team can’t win a game in the first quarter, but they can certainly lose it.
It was a game where the Sixers just absolutely struggled and it was disheartening on their end.
Doc Rivers on the poor start
As mentioned, the Sixers got off to such a slow start and coach Doc Rivers was upset with the way his team did not respond in the loss.
“I just thought they played harder,” said Rivers. “I thought they were more aggressive. They played in our air space all night. I thought they were the more physical team all night. I didn’t think we played together.”
The Nets did end up having 29 assists on the night compared to 19 for the Sixers.
“I thought it was a great example of a team that hasn’t been together early on and everybody was trying to do it themselves,” said Rivers. “You can see that early on. I think at one point, it was 17-4 in assists. They were moving it, we didn’t, and then, the stops. We didn’t get any stops early.”
James Harden on the slow start on both ends
Harden shot 1-for-6 in the opening quarter, 1-for-12 at the half, and that led to him shooting 3-for-17 for the night. The slow start from the team didn’t help, but Harden seemed to really be affected by it.
Harden: “Honestly, I don’t know. It’s a little bit of everything. I think we didn’t have the pop that we needed to. We turned the ball over too much, gave a lot of easy points. Not even contested points. Just easy layups and 3s and dunks. They made some tough shots early which we expected, but offensively, since I’ve been here, we’ve been playing really well. The ball’s been moving and tonight, it just didn’t move as much as we needed it to. A combination of them making shots and the ball not moving helped them offensively.”
Harden is normally an offensive maestro, but he just wasn’t able to get it together in this one.
“In that first quarter, the ball wasn’t moving,” said Harden. “We didn’t get into the paint, we wasn’t kicking out for 3s, we wasn’t having our original flow like we needed to. The result of that, we only had 23 points.”
Harris ended up with 16 points, but he played a part in the team’s slow start as well.
“For the start, our defense wasn’t there,” said Harris. “It wasn’t there all night, actually, but from the start of the game, the intensity defensively, the ball wasn’t moving, we didn’t do a good job of making the extra pass. That combined with missing shots just tallies up and from then on, it was tough for us to actually gain a flow and a rhythm there to cut the lead. I thought in the beginning of the game, those were the key factors.”
Once the Nets got off to their fast start, there was no coming back for the Sixers. They weren’t able to get into any rhythm and Brooklyn took advantage of it.
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