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The Sixers fell to the Brooklyn Nets 122-97 in a game that was painful to experience. Brett Brown’s squad was completely out of sync, looking more like the youth-abundant teams of the peak of the Process than a team coming off of a 52-win season. Every member of the Sixers, from the starters to the bench to the coach, appeared unprepared and unfocused.
The first statistic anyone will point to in tonight’s box score to explain the game will be the Sixers’ 27 turnovers. Twenty-seven. Leading the way in giveaways were Joel Embiid, Robert Covington and Ben Simmons, with five each. To compound the Sixers’ carelessness with the rock, they allowed 15 offensive rebounds. By the end of the game, the Nets were able to chuck up 105 field goals compared to the Sixers 65, a difference of 40 shots! Overcoming 27 turnovers and a 40-shot discrepancy is hard enough, but to make matters worse, the Sixers weren’t able to find any success from behind the arc. As a team, they shot just 4 of 20 from distance. With the offense stalling so helplessly, you’d assume they’d lean on Embiid. However, Joel took just eight field goals on the evening.
The lone bright spot of the night may have been the play of Landry Shamet. Shamet was 3 of 6 from the floor with two three-pointers, ultimately adding on 12 points.
Brett Brown’s offense lacked any sort of creativity and the team as a whole seemed unengaged. It was perhaps the worst showing of any of the Sixers first 11 games. The optimist might chalk up the poor performance to fatigue as a result of playing two games in two days. The pessimist is revving up the Fire Brett campaign, and has placed both Dario Saric and Markelle Fultz on the trading block. I’m leaning more toward the optimistic side of things. While tonight (and the season in general) has been disappointing, I still think there’s another gear for this team. It is concerning though that with each game, the roster construction seems to be more and more of an issue.
The Sixers next play Wednesday, November 7th against the 7-3 Indiana Pacers.