The Philadelphia 76ers just can’t catch a break.
After an embarrassing loss to the Miami Heat on Monday, during which the Sixers blew a 19-point lead, Kyle Lowry called a team meeting. In it, players challenged Nick Nurse to coach them harder, while Nurse and the coaches called for more detail-oriented practices. Also, Tyrese Maxey challenged Joel Embiid to axe his tardiness and lead by example.
It felt like a potential turning point. A moment of reckoning for the wayward Sixers, who seemed to take accountability for a god-awful start to the campaign.
Alas, with the injury-ravaged Memphis Grizzlies on the docket Wednesday night, the Sixers showed their true colors. It was another lifeless loss, 117-111 on the road against a team without its best player. Ja Morant watched in street clothes as the Sixers — with their entire starting lineup of Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey, Paul George, Jared McCain, and Caleb Martin healthy for the first time — were sliced and diced by a bunch of Grizzlies role players.
You cannot lose this game if you’re the Sixers. The optics are terrible, maybe even unforgivable. There’s still time to salvage this season, but at what point does that line get stale? You can’t salvage a season unless the players want to, and the Sixers sure don’t seem as urgent and engaged as they should be.
Here’s who deserves the most blame for Wednesday’s travesty.
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Look, it’s a bit silly to blame a guy coming off a hamstring injury, but it is what it is. Maxey earned positive press this week for his leadership and willingness to challenge Embiid in a team meeting. It’s clear that Embiid has gone unchallenged for too long, and Maxey’s efforts to take a more vocal, hands-on approach in the Sixers locker room is appreciated. Philadelphia has lacked that sort of leadership from its star apparatus for too long.
That said, Maxey was clearly out of whack on Wednesday. Limited to 20 minutes in his first game back, the All-Star point guard netted eight points, three rebounds, and two assists on 3-of-13 shooting, including 0-of-6 from deep, Maxey is now shooting .393/.265/.830 for the season, which is less than ideal.
Better days are ahead for the Kentucky product, but Maxey clearly understands the urgency of the Sixers’ situation as well as anyone in that locker room. For his long-awaited return to result in a dud (and another loss) with the entire team healthy is severely disappointing.
Paul George left the game less than a minute into the third quarter with a hyperextended left knee, the same injury that led to a bone bruise in the preseason and a multi-week absence. George has already missed six games this season due to his left knee, and we should expect more games missed on the horizon. As soon as Philadelphia’s vaunted ‘Big 3’ finally made its debut, the basketball gods snuffed it out.
It’s unclear how long George will remain on the sideline. When he was on the floor against Memphis, however, the veteran forward — recently paid $212 million to help the Sixers contend for a championship — struggled. A lot. He finished the first half with two points on 1-of-6 shooting. It has been tough sledding all season for George, and now it gets more complicated.
George deserves time and patience. He’s working his way back from an injury (again) and he’s adjusting to new surroundings in Philadelphia, where offensive cohesion is clearly not up to par. That said, the Sixers also can’t afford these duds from the 34-year-old. At 2-12, the margin for error is kaput. George was a big reason for Philadelphia’s early deficit in this game. Even limited to 17 minutes by injury, he needs a finger pointed in his direction. Once his knee is stable and George can return, the production has to improve.
Nick Nurse has been the worst coach in the NBA this season. Pardon my reactionary and incensed fan brain, but can we honestly dispute that point? The Sixers are 2-12 despite dishing out three max contracts this summer and hitting on a Rookie of the Year frontrunner with the No. 16 pick. Nurse has been dealt the worst imaginable hand in terms of injuries and off-court distractions, but all the same, 2-12 is unacceptable.
Philadelphia has been healthy enough to win more than two games. Even if we haven’t seen more than half a game with the core trio all healthy, there has been enough Tyrese Maxey, enough Paul George, and even enough Joel Embiid to turn out a better record than this. The Sixers are playing like the worst team in the NBA. We should blame the front office, too, and whoever is cooking up the Embiid injury management plan, but ultimately, this all reflects back on the head coach.
The Sixers rank dead last in points per game (103.3) and offensive rating (104.7). The defense is a complete mess, which is supposed to be Nurse’s area of expertise. He’s known for dynamic, versatile scheming on that end of the floor, the the Sixers just look lost right now. Joel Embiid was healthy and available to anchor Philadelphia’s defense in Memphis and the Grizzlies were parading down the lane at will, generating open 3s and constantly finding the Sixers out of rotation.
It’s a complete, inexcusable mess. The Sixers are stagnant and unimaginative on offense and completely out of whack on defense. Part of that is the simple lack of practice (and game) time with the entire group healthy, but at a certain point, Nurse is going to fall on the sword, whether he “deserves” it or not. Such is life as an NBA head coach.
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