There’s no shame in losing a basketball game.
This is doubly true when the two highest-paid players in the history of the franchise are either hurt (again), suspended (seriously?), or, when they are available, less than fully whole.
Sometimes, there’s even no shame in losing by 40.
However, there is great shame in losing by 40 because you don’t play hard. There is humiliation in being down by 49 with 12 minutes to play because, for the previous 36 minutes, you generally played matador, playground, YMCA defense, despite playing at home, after a day off.
The Sixers lost by 40 to the Spurs on Tuesday night, but it could have been 70, except the Spurs sat their starters in the fourth quarter. They trailed by 49 after three en route to ignominy.
It is their third home loss by at least 40 points. They are the first team in NBA history to lose three home games in the same season by at least 40, according to @basketball-reference.com.
They’re the league’s worst third-quarter team, and the second worst in the last 30 years, but they gave up 46 points in the second quarter Tuesday. They are nothing if not equal-opportunity no-shows.
They played without Joel Embiid, whose side hurts, and they played without Paul George, who served the 14th game of his 25-game drug suspension.
They have won plenty without either of them, and both. Fueled by an MVP-caliber season from Tyrese Maxey, the Sixers entered Wednesday night’s game against the visiting Jazz at 33-28, which gave them sixth place in the Eastern Conference. If they play hard, they are a viable team every night.
So, on a night without their two future Hall of Famers, and a night without bed-sick forward Kelly Oubre Jr., you would think the Sixers, to a man, would play hard. You’d think they would prioritize defense and rebounding.
They did not.
They were outrebounded by 16. They gave up 131 points.
They played weak and they played dumb and they played like a team that was defeated before it took the court. They did so in a national TV prime-time game that embarrassed the franchise in front of the nation.
No resistance
“There just was no resistance, defensively,” coach Nick Nurse said.
What he didn’t say was, again. He could have. For the Sixers, blowouts have become as common as bad draft picks.
Blame Nurse if you like, or blame the players, or blame the bad luck and bad choices that have kept the stars in the trainer’s room, but the Sixers are conducting a clinic on how to chase fans to the parking lot before the fourth quarter is half over.
This not only was the Sixers’ third loss by at least 40 points, it was their fourth loss by at least 37 points, and their seventh loss by at least 21 points. Despite it being a 40-point loss, it was still nine points shy of their worst loss of the year, a 49-point disgrace against the visiting Knicks on Feb. 11. Entering Wednesday night’s game against the Jazz, the Sixers had suffered three of the 17 worst losses in the NBA this season — a year in which about one-third of the league is tanking.
All seven of the Sixers’ blowouts have come in their last 45 games, which means, lately, they’re getting destroyed more than 15% of the time.
Is it road woes? No. Five of the seven blowouts came at home.
Is it the competition? Not necessarily.
The Spurs are a deep, well-coached team built around Victor Wembanyama, the game’s best two-way player. They’ve lost big to really good teams like San Antonio and Oklahoma City, but they’ve been dog-walked by three teams with worse records than their own: Orlando, Charlotte, and even woeful Washington.
Maxey believes that when the Sixers don’t play hard and lack focus early, they have no chance late.
“When we don’t start fast, defensively and aggressive in the right way — that’s when it happens,” Maxey said. “We start soft, and we’re not pressuring the ball, not getting to the ball, and we give up bad cuts, and stuff like that.”
That’s occasionally true, but the Sixers have generally been able to match their oppositions’ output in the first quarter. However, they’ve had to come back to do so, and that sometimes leaves them exhausted when the second quarter comes around. They gave up 51 points to Orlando, 41 to Charlotte, and 46 to the Spurs in the second quarters of those blowouts.
Forget the numbers. Forget the quarters. If you watched the games, you saw what Nurse saw:
No resistance.
C’mon, man
You saw Maxey throw away a cross-court pass, then just watch the thief streak down the court.
You saw Andre Drummond, a former defensive player of the year candidate and a four-time rebounding champion, foul Wembanyama twice in the first two minutes. Drummond, Embiid’s $5 million understudy, played just five minutes.
Blowouts happen, especially when your roster fluctuates. Before their latest excuses for absence materialized, Embiid and George were only inconsistently available. This was due to age, injury management, and, frankly, a questionable desire to actually play in the games for which they are paid a combined $106 million this season.
But their presence doesn’t ensure proficiency. Embiid and George both played in two of the blowouts. Embiid missed the other five, while George missed four of the five.
Throw in a rookie like VJ Edgecombe, who, predictably, makes mistakes on defense, and add a dash of Maxey, who is congenitally defense-challenged, and you’re going to have the occasional train wreck.
But it should only be occasional. It shouldn’t be more than 10% of the entire season.
It might seem unfair to question players’ effort, especially that of Maxey and Edgecombe. Maxey leads the NBA in minutes played, and Edgecombe ranks eighth, and he leads all rookies, and the blowouts started about a month into the season.
But Drummond, Edgecombe, and power forward Dominick Barlow, this season’s feel-good story of persistence and effort, earn their minutes from their defense.
Embiid’s strained oblique will cost him at least one more game and probably more. George is out until March 25.
Until they’re both back and both viable, the Sixers will have a talent void. They can best fill it with persistence and effort.
But on nights when they offer “no resistance,” they will have no chance.
