Philadelphia 76ers Out-Tank New Orleans Pelicans

In a game that had some serious draft lottery implications, the Philadelphia 76ers out-tanked the New Orleans Pelicans by losing 121-114 in the first game back from the All-Star break.

The first game back from the All-Star break had serious NBA Draft Lottery implications, as the Philadelphia 76ers and New Orleans Pelicans had a combined 85.8 percent chance at getting in the top 3 of the NBA Draft.

The Sixers did what they do best, coming out on top — or on bottom, if you will — by losing to the Pelicans therefore putting themselves one game closer to that hopefully high seeded draft pick.

The Sixers were a bit doomed from the start as rookie center and top scorer Jahlil Okafor committed 3 quick fouls. He was sat for most of the first quarter and did not score in the first half, which really made it hard for things to get going for the team. Rarely has anyone stepped up when Ish Smith and Jahlil Okafor are both off of the floor, and that was the case tonight, as the team fell behind early and never really looked back when Jah was out with foul trouble and Ish was getting rested in the second half of the first quarter. T.J. McConnell was too busy looking for guys who wouldn’t sink their shots, and Nerlens Noel tried, but couldn’t get many of his shots to fall.

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Noel did end up smoothing out and having a decent night with 24 points on 10-15 shooting.

Okafor didn’t score at all in the first half but scored 14 points in the second half. Jah ended up fouling out of this game, and it was the first ever game of his NBA career that he had fouled out of. Okafor being off of the floor was damaging, and his net rating for the night was a +7.

Nik Stauskas had an encouraging shooting night but still fails to fill up a stat sheet. He scored 11 points  on 4-7 shooting from the field. The whole team shot well, above 50 percent, but the Pelicans did as well.

Turnovers were an issue yet again, with the team committing 20 and giving up 18 points off of turnovers.

Two factors really killed the Sixers on Friday. First was their inability to run with the Pelicans, who were lobbing all over the Sixers on Friday night with backdoor cuts and fast breaks. The Sixers had just 8 fast break points at the end of the night where the Pelicans had 23. Second was the poor rebounding shown by Philly. They were out-rebounded by the Pelicans by a margin of 10.

The Pelicans had several top performers. Coming off of yet another All-Star bid, Anthony Davis scored 34 points and brought in 7 rebounds for New Orleans. Omer Asik had 9 points and 14 rebounds. Jrue Holiday, former Sixer, came off the bench with a huge night, scoring 24 points and 12 assists. Ryan Anderson had 26 points.

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Although we could pick a part the shortcomings for Philly on Friday, we probably shouldn’t. They were unfortunately without Okafor for a lot of the game, and coming off of several days off due to the All-Star break. Head coach Brett Brown even predicted that the team would have trouble getting back in the swing of things.

The Sixers’ next game is on Sunday against the Dallas Mavericks.