“ After two minutes, we were… »Nick Nurse widen your eyes when he thinks back to the start of his Sixers' game on the Nuggets floor. “ Several guys were on one diagram, other guys on another… », Delivers the Philadelphia coach in a worrying speech, believing that his team was not ready to start this match lost by 35 points.
Deprived of Joel Embiid, his team nevertheless managed to hang on to the score for a half. At the break, the visitors were only 10 points behind. The rest of the events were much more complicated as the Sixers struggled to contain Nikola Jokic and his gang.
“ We weren't in the match enough to give the defense enough trouble. We constantly retrace our steps by not communicating well enough, by not being physical enough to resist them. On several plays near the circle, we were behind them, but they buried us so deep… They had the size advantage on almost every position », deplores the coach.
The latter tried well in zone defense, to compensate for the lack of centimeters displayed by Guerschon Yabusele and the others against the Serb, Michael Porter Jr. and Aaron Gordon. Nikola Jokic then had fun cutting up the lines thanks to his reading of the game and his blind transmissions.
37 points conceded on counter-attack
Philadelphia didn't have much trouble finding openings on offense. But the defensive shortcomings cost too much. “ We missed two or three layups in transition, it turned into a dunk transition, 3-pointer on the other side. They capitalized on everything », Said Nick Nurse again, thinking of the abysmal gap in terms of points scored on the counter-attack (37 to 7 in favor of the Nuggets).
The Sixers coach thus assures that he is not satisfied with the “ mental preparation to be ready when the match starts “. Failures that occur while Philadelphia is already in very bad shape. After the improvement at the end of December, the Sixers are riding a series of seven losses in a row (15v-27d). And especially moving away from the race for the play-in, the Bulls (19-25), to whom they travel on Saturday, with three games in advance.
“ We face very good teams, night after night after night. We fight like hell, we are close, with a chance in a lot of matches. But this evening, we didn't bring (this energy). We're going to have matches like this where, for who knows what reason, we're stuck and we don't move forward. But I don't think we're in a position to have that kind of match now, so I'm not really satisfied », says Nick Nurse.
Alarmism seems to be in order for his team which, with the reception of the Cavs and the trip to Chicago, will try to recover at home, but with a tough schedule (Lakers, Kings, Nuggets, Celtics, etc.).
| Shots | Rebounds | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Players | MJ | Min | Shots | 3pts | L.F. | Off | Def | Early | Pd | Bp | Int | Ct | Party | Pts |
| Tyrese Maxey | 35 | 37.7 | 42.7 | 33.3 | 85.6 | 0.3 | 3.2 | 3.5 | 5.9 | 2.4 | 2.0 | 0.4 | 2.3 | 26.4 |
| Joel Embiid | 13 | 29.4 | 45.2 | 32.7 | 92.0 | 1.7 | 6.2 | 7.9 | 3.8 | 3.2 | 0.8 | 1.0 | 2.2 | 24.4 |
| Paul George | 28 | 32.6 | 42.3 | 35.5 | 82.4 | 0.7 | 5.1 | 5.8 | 4.9 | 2.7 | 1.8 | 0.4 | 2.6 | 17.0 |
| Jared McCain | 23 | 25.7 | 46.0 | 38.3 | 87.5 | 0.6 | 1.9 | 2.4 | 2.6 | 1.6 | 0.7 | 0.0 | 1.6 | 15.3 |
| Kelly Oubre, Jr. | 39 | 33.4 | 45.6 | 28.3 | 74.8 | 1.5 | 4.3 | 5.8 | 1.6 | 1.3 | 1.5 | 0.5 | 2.9 | 13.5 |
| Guerschon Yabusele | 40 | 25.8 | 51.2 | 40.9 | 68.4 | 1.9 | 3.4 | 5.3 | 1.9 | 1.2 | 0.7 | 0.4 | 2.6 | 10.4 |
| Caleb Martin | 31 | 30.4 | 43.5 | 37.9 | 62.2 | 1.4 | 3.0 | 4.4 | 2.2 | 1.4 | 1.1 | 0.6 | 2.0 | 9.1 |
| Andrew Drummond | 28 | 19.2 | 50.9 | 9.1 | 57.4 | 2.5 | 5.1 | 7.6 | 0.6 | 1.7 | 1.1 | 0.4 | 2.4 | 7.1 |
| Justin Edwards | 13 | 19.2 | 47.9 | 34.1 | 60.0 | 0.7 | 1.9 | 2.6 | 1.0 | 0.9 | 0.4 | 0.2 | 1.8 | 6.8 |
| Kj Martin | 24 | 20.0 | 61.6 | 38.1 | 82.8 | 0.9 | 2.1 | 3.0 | 0.8 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.7 | 2.6 | 6.4 |
| Eric Gordon | 31 | 18.5 | 40.9 | 37.5 | 74.4 | 0.2 | 0.9 | 1.1 | 1.5 | 0.7 | 0.6 | 0.3 | 0.9 | 6.3 |
| Ricky Council IV | 35 | 14.4 | 39.8 | 26.9 | 84.1 | 0.7 | 1.7 | 2.3 | 0.9 | 0.6 | 0.3 | 0.2 | 0.9 | 6.2 |
| Kyle Lowry | 25 | 19.9 | 35.6 | 33.8 | 80.0 | 0.3 | 1.5 | 1.8 | 2.7 | 0.7 | 1.0 | 0.3 | 1.9 | 4.2 |
| Reggie Jackson | 24 | 11.8 | 38.5 | 35.2 | 85.7 | 0.2 | 1.0 | 1.3 | 1.5 | 0.7 | 0.5 | 0.1 | 1.1 | 4.0 |
| Jeff Dowtin | 20 | 11.4 | 40.5 | 23.8 | 70.6 | 0.2 | 1.2 | 1.3 | 1.5 | 0.2 | 0.4 | 0.2 | 0.7 | 3.9 |
| Pete Nance | 5 | 12.1 | 33.3 | 33.3 | 50.0 | 0.4 | 1.4 | 1.8 | 0.6 | 0.0 | 0.2 | 0.0 | 2.0 | 3.0 |
| Adem Bona | 27 | 9.9 | 72.2 | 0.0 | 64.5 | 0.9 | 1.6 | 2.5 | 0.3 | 0.6 | 0.1 | 0.7 | 1.7 | 2.7 |
| Lester Quinones | 4 | 4.2 | 50.0 | 0.0 | 100.0 | 0.8 | 0.3 | 1.0 | 0.3 | 1.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 2.3 |
