The Philadelphia 76ers lost their second straight game to the Atlanta Hawks 104-72. Although there were plenty of positives, there were more negatives.
In the middle of the second quarter, Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid rotated to help teammate Jahlil Okafor with defending Dwight Howard, and ended up blocking Howard’s shot. Then, on the next possession on the other end of the floor, Embiid challeneged Howard, driving towards the hoop. Not knowing how to cover the versatile and athletic Embiid, Howard committed a foul, and was visibly frustrated with himself.
That’s going to be a lot of this season. Despite losing games, the Sixers are going to have to look for positive takeaways within games and try to make progress through those.
To start off the game, Joel Embiid was given the ball beyond the arc, and while the defense not coming out to challenge him left him open, he hit the 3-pointer with a solid form. Teams are going to have to start challenging him there.
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Embiid closed the game with 14 points, 2 rebounds, and 1 assist. His field goal percentage was greatly improved compared to his first game, hitting 5 of his 9 attempted shots. He had three fouls in the first half, but several of those were questionable calls. The rookie was not getting the referees to favor him.
Embiid showed solid athleticism and guard-like qualities (which is incredible given his muscular build and tall heights) throughout the matchup .
The first quarter for the Sixers was a solid one. They looked good on defense, and the offensive looked cohesive and thought out. The Sixers started the game with an 8-0 lead, 5 of those points being from Joel Embiid.
After that, the Sixers started to fall apart. It was notable that when Embiid was not on the floor, the Sixers gave up a lot more points against the Hawks without their best rim protector. Many other members of the team failed to shut Hawks players down on defense.
The Sixers failed to score over 20 points in any single quarter after the first.
One of the key positives the Sixers had during the game was limiting Dwight Howard on offense. Howard had just 2 points and 7 rebounds (3 offensive) during the game. Paul Millsap was the Hawks’ leading player with 17 points, 4 rebounds, and 4 assists.
Without a doubt, Sergio Rodriguez has been one of the best players on the Sixers roster so far this season. Rodriguez, after his impressive opening game, put up 14 points, 4 rebounds, and 5 assists, while sinking 7 of his 13 attempts.
Overall, one of the big things that the Sixers couldn’t get right was passing. Richaun Holmes missed two easy passes due to not paying attention to the game, and there was some miscommunication between Joel Embiid and T.J. McConnell at one point over where was best for McConnell to put the ball for him.
One positive that we saw was when Joel Embiid and Jahlil Okafor were on the floor — two players that elicit double-teams from the opposition — was that neither of them got confused, even when there was mutliple double-teams on the same possession. They got the ball out of their hands, and put it in the hands of someone who was open. This led to some great ball movement from all five players on the floor.
Other players who had overall positive impacts throughout the game were Jerami Grant and Richaun Holmes, who both came on and played with some incredibly high intensity.
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Although this game looked a lot sloppier than the first game, and came with a lot of the same issues that we saw last year that we wanted to stop (low scoring was the biggest one) Sixers fans shouldn’t be losing their wits just yet.
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This type of play was exactly what we should have expected at the start of this season. This roster is largely new players who have not played with each other, so we should have anticipated some miscommunication and tough play. As the weeks go along, things should come together.
The Sixers’ next game is on Tuesday at 7p.m. against the Orlando Magic at home.