The Philadelphia 76ers lose their fourth straight on the road to the James Harden-led Houston Rockets.
Much like the previous games for the Philadelphia 76ers, this was a rough one to watch all the way through.
The Sixers held the NBA’s second-best offensive team, the Houston Rockets, to just 20 points in the first quarter, which showed a tremendous amount of hope for the rest of the game. That hope faded quickly.
Ben Simmons started off the game defending Russell Westbrook but ended up switching onto James Harden eventually. Simmons held his own for the most part, but Harden eventually figured out how to work the Sixers’ defense.
Trey Burke immediately showed why he shouldn’t be a part of a trade package in the near future. In just five minutes on the court, he scored five points. He ended the half with nine points, two assists, six rebounds, and shot 4-for-4 from the field.
The second quarter started off with five easy points for the Rockets in just one trip down the court. During the non-Harden minutes, the Sixers really needed to take advantage, but sloppy plays and unwise shots led to the Rockets to gain even more momentum.
The Sixers allowed 23 points in about five minutes in the second half. This was mostly due to not hustling back on defense in transition. Clint Capela destroyed Joel Embiid down the court a handful of times.
Josh Richardson got his first points of the game off a three about halfway through the third, which was not ideal. A minute later he hit another which shed some light on the game, but that was the last of the light the Sixers would see. The Sixers cut their 16-point deficit down to a six-point deficit, but trailed by 15 points again almost immediately. The only stops the whole quarter appeared to come from the back of the rim which deflected a few of Westbrook’s dunks.
Three-point shooting for the Sixers was an absolute mess. They went 6-for-24 from beyond against the Rockets’ 10-for-30. A steal by Furkan Korkmaz, who got in position to get Tobias Harris a dunk, cut the Sixers’ deficit to just five. It was of course then is answered right away by a Rockets dunk.
The Sixers will finally head back to the Wells Fargo Center to hopefully come together and break this unbearable stretch of losses.