4 – Turnovers Continue to Hurt Sixers
It’s simple: if you lose the turnover battle, there’s a very good chance that you’re going to lose the game.
On Wednesday, the Sixers committed nearly twice as many turnovers (26) as the Grizzlies (15), and in the end, it ended up costing the Sixers the game.
While Joel Embiid is unquestionably the best player that the Sixers have, he has been turning the ball over at a pretty high rate. Heading into Wednesday, he led the team with 3.9 turnovers per game. Sergio Rodriguez (2.7) was the only other 76ers player to average more than 2.0 turnovers per game coming into the Grizzlies game, and he’s the starting point guard (meaning there’s a higher probability that he’ll turn the ball over, given the amount of passes he’s throwing).
On Wednesday, Embiid committed a game-high 7 turnovers in the defeat, while Robert Covington had 6 and Jerryd Bayless 5.
Brett Brown summed it up pretty well here:
#Sixers Brown: 'You can't have 27 turnovers and win. You just can't do it.'
— Tom Moore (@TomMoorePhilly) November 24, 2016
Despite the turnovers, the Sixers were able to hang with one of the Western Conference’s better teams, and you can only imagine how the game would have turned out had the Sixers not turned the ball over and frequently as they did on Wednesday.
So far this year, the Sixers lead the NBA in turnovers per game with 17.9 per contest.
If they can manage to start limiting the offensive giveaways, expect the team to be in a lot more close games than they’ve been accustomed to over the past few seasons.