The Philadelphia 76ers come more than short once again against a Doncic-less Dallas Mavericks, totaling their loss streak to three
The Philadelphia 76ers seem to have been solved offensively. The Sixers have lost back to back matches at home and this hasn’t happened since December of last year.
The Sixers had a pretty good start to the game, until they couldn’t find an answer for Tim Hardaway Jr. who had 19 points in the first quarter alone. The second quarter was an even one, and the Mavericks led by six by the half. Meanwhile, Embiid logged an early double-double and looked like the only player showing signs of life for the Sixers.
Coming out of the half, much like the first quarter the Sixers looked good until it all fell apart halfway through the third quarter. They failed to make anything work against the Mavs 3-2 zone defense.
Brett Brown has to take a certain amount of accountability here. The Miami Heat showed the league on Wednesday that a 2-3 zone defense completely shuts down the Sixers offense. Brown had a lot of time to work around that, or adjust in game today. Instead, viewers were left with no answers and a lot of anger.
The bench once again, did not have a great showing. Thybulle had another scoreless game, two in the last three. Ennis wasn’t in rhythm with the three tonight. Korkmaz played decent and maybe could’ve played more, considering Brown tried out his whole bench tonight. Mike Scott was the Sixers best bench player tonight with seven points and five boards.
Hopefully the Brett Brown makes an adjustment to the zone defense — he knows it works against him and he should be fully prepared to play around it tomorrow against the Wizards tomorrow. This three game losing streak is an embarrassing one and it should help fuel them against the most anticipated Christmas day game against the Milwaukee Bucks.