Sixers not particularly happy with their play in win over Pelicans
The scoreboard read that the Philadelphia 76ers knocked off the New Orleans Pelicans 109-107 which is the team’s seventh straight win. However, considering how shorthanded the Pelicans were missing two All-Stars, it feels like they should have won by more.
The team built up a 17-point lead, but they then allowed New Orleans to outscore them 37-18 in the third quarter as the bench continued to be inconsistent with their play.
This is now becoming a bit of a trend as Philadelphia has been facing lesser teams who are also dealing with a ton of injuries. They have yet to face a fully healthy team during this win streak and there have been a few times where the team built a big lead only to see it either dwindle quickly or completely disappear as it did on Friday.
“We’re getting wins, but I don’t like the way we’ve been getting them,” said Danny Green. “We got to be more locked in and any team can win on any given night, they’re very talented teams regardless, but these teams are not 100% healthy. They don’t have everybody, and if we’re gonna play like a championship contender team that wants to be the last team standing with the potential we can play, we do it we need to do a lot better.”
The Pelicans got a lot of dribble penetration all night long and that allowed New Orleans to score at the basket. Lonzo Ball and Eric Bledsoe were consistently getting into the paint and that allowed Jaxson Hayes and Willy Hernangomez to get easy baskets. That was a big reason why the Pelicans were able to take a 7-point lead.
“We gotta do a better job,” said Ben Simmons. “When we have the lead, you got to hold it. Everyone needs to hold each other accountable on that and we gotta play better defense. I think overall we didn’t really stop the ball, we let too many drives get into the lane, so we got to a better job.”
New Orleans’ guard penetration was an issue all night and that forced Joel Embiid and Dwight Howard to have to step up in order to try and block it off.
“I swear they just beat us off the dribble without pick-and-rolls,” said coach Doc Rivers. “Just straight-line drives, which Joel and Dwight were in help the entire night, which allowed their bigs and just to have freedom. We were not connected defensively at all.”
There were not just on the defensive end, but on the offensive end in the second half. After putting up 70 points in the first half, they only scored 39 in the second half as New Orleans’ zone defense gave them fits down the stretch.
“We weren’t connected on either end,” Rivers added. “I thought the first half, obviously, we were great offensively. The second half, I thought that zone affected us which that hasn’t happened all year. Probably good in some ways than that it had happened and then defensively, we were pretty bad all night.”
Philadelphia will have a quick turnaround as they will host the Detroit Pistons on Saturday.
This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!
