The Sixers lost. That's nothing new.
The Sixers were soundly defeated. Again, not really out of the ordinary.
The Sixers got totally clowned. That doesn't happen as often as most would think, and when it does, the reaction isn't always pleasant to deal with.
The bottom line is that the Sixers lost by "let's just set the game tape on fire and pretend this never happened" points to the best team in the league. This is a team that has routinely beaten good and bad teams alike. This isn't their first pasting.
But every time the Sixers lose a game like this, the chorus rises to attention. "Is this really worth it?" "Why do they have to be this bad?" "I'm on board, but this is getting ridiculous."
Those are all reasonable arguments in a macro sense. (I disagree with them, but they're reasonable discussion points.) They are equally frustrating when employed in a micro sense.
In an 82-game season, they're going to lay some eggs. They have players whose ceilings are "energy bench player" in their starting lineup. They have a point guard with a serious shooting deficiency as by far their highest usage player. When this team wins a game, they are overachieving.
I'm not saying they should simply ignore losses like this. When they lose in this convincing a fashion, they are underachieving. There are holes to fix, there are teaching moments, there are things that can be taken out of even the most devastating of losses.
Those are the sort of things we can look at in a micro sense. We look at concerning trends, like the continued shooting woes of Michael Carter-Williams, which is quickly morphing from a problem into a PROBLEM. We can look at even small successes, like the continued offensive production of Robert Covington. We can ask five different people their opinion on Nerlens Noel and get five different answers.
But in a macro sense? Leave it alone. It's a long season, and there's no point in extrapolating more out of one game against a truly elite team than is needed. The Sixers played the Warriors, and they got the doors blown off. It was to be expected given where this team is in the process. They have good nights and bad nights, and this was one of the bad nights. It was a thing that happened.
Sixers lost 126-86. Henry Sims scored 19 points. Malcolm Thomas returned and put up 10 and 8. Michael Carter-Williams made one more field goal than I did. Former Sixers great and Doug Collins Superfan Mo Speights scored a game-high 23.
So that happened.