After a long — and somewhat irritating — three-overtime battle, the Philadelphia 76ers dropped back to .500 with a narrow loss to Russell Westbrook and OKC.
ESPN’s All Access Philadelphia day ended with all the Philadelphia 76ers basketball you could ask for. For the first time this season, an NBA game went to double-overtime. Then, it went to triple-overtime.
The Sixers didn’t hold the lead until the first overtime period, trailing throughout regulation before making a big push down the stretch. Turnovers were their biggest issue in the second half, but like the game in Minnesota on Tuesday, they were able to hang around before tying it up late.
OKC didn’t score for over five minutes to end the game, while Philly went on an 11-0 run to make overtime happen. Then the game got ugly.
This was a good basketball game in terms of pure excitement level. You don’t see too many three-OT games, and this one was back-and-forth throughout the extra periods. Joel Embiid tried to take over the game late, while Russell Westbrook hit some big shots in the final period — shots that would eventually guide the Thunder to a win.
One issue prevailed during overtime, though: The officiating. There were questionable calls and no-calls that affected both teams, and many of them could have led to a different outcome.
Andre Roberson got hacked on a missed layup towards the end of second-overtime, while the Sixers were unable to advance the ball with 1.2 seconds left despite the timeout being called before Dario Saric started his dribble up court. There was also an earlier issue when Steven Adams pushed Embiid into Robert Covington during a (3-point) shot, but the foul was inexplicably called on the floor.
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Fouls and whatnot aside, the Sixers made some costly mistakes late before an impressive defensive possession from OKC stopped them on the final play. The Sixers had enough time to draw up a play down two, but opted to go for a 3-pointer and the win — leading to Patrick Patterson getting his hand on Redick’s shot.
The majority of regulation was highlighted by Carmelo Anthony‘s strong shooting night and Westbrook’s struggles, while the Sixers dealt with serious inconsistency of their own. Covington was off all night, resulting in a grim 4-21 tally from the field.
Joel Embiid also dealt with some clear back pain, which seemed to flare up after a couple of hard falls in the third quarter — with Steven Adams’ physicality playing a role.
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Now at 14-14, the Sixers will look to bounce back Monday in Chicago against a moderately hot Chicago Bulls team.