No kind of loss this season would faze Philadelphia 76ers fans anymore. From epic humiliations, tight losses, feel-good moral victories that nonetheless end up in defeat to embarrassing blown leads, people have seen it all with this team. Still, there remain those that bring up troubling narratives that could prove especially problematic moving forward.
Such is the case with their most recent L care of the Minnesota Timberwolves. Philly managed to make the game really interesting on the road against last year’s Western Conference finalists, only to falter in the final frame and eventually end up with their 40th loss of the season, bringing them down to 12th place in the East.
Losing to a playoff team in the West like Minnesota is not necessarily soul-shackling, but this one was arguably winnable for the 76ers. For the most part, they played well enough to actually win, yet some puzzling quirk made sure that the team fall short on the scoring department against Anthony Edwards and company.
Lack of aggression from Paul George will doom the 76ers moving forward
After shutting down Joel Embiid, the 76ers seemed poised to do the same with Paul George, who has struggled all year long thanks to his rhythm getting disrupted by ill-timed injuries, but for some reason, the 34-year-old still finds himself logging significant court time for the squad.
However, he has been flat-out disappointing. In this game, he continued this troubling trend of not being assertive, ending up with just 11 field-goal atempts en route to seven points — an unacceptable number for someone on a max contract.
It is extremely unlikely that the 76ers would be able to find a taker for George anytime soon, meaning that they will have to make do with having him in the fold. But if he is going to continue being this passive, even with Embiid and Tyrese Maxey sidelined, things could get even uglier for this partnership.
George thrives as a volume shooter, and refusing to pull the trigger will not help him get out of this year-long slump. While he is still contributing elsewhere as a point forward, the 76ers did not envision George playing the Nic Batum role when they signed him to that humongous deal.
If Paul George is dead serious about redirecting all his energy into being more productive for the Philadelphia 76ers, he cannot be a passive weapon for the team. There are still reasons to believe he can get back to his usual self, but if he will be hesitant to even pull out his gun, he — and the team — will be going nowhere.