With two meetings lined up over the next nine days, the Los Angeles Lakers and the Philadelphia 76ers sparked some bad tanking jokes and raised people’s curiosity on whether these teams would not try to win the game—especially the Sixers, as they receive a draft pick from the Lakers if they win a little more and get out of the bottom five.
It did not look like a tank job early on for the Sixers, as they built up a 10-point lead in the first half. Thomas Robinson was a big reason why, as he came off the bench and immediately provided offense and rebounds and led the Sixers in scoring for the game with 14 points. The Sixers were looking like they had a decent chance of achieving their first three-game winning streak in 15 months.
The Lakers began chipping away at the lead, and the teams entered the fourth quarter only separated by a point, with the Sixers leading. That’s when Jeremy Lin went off and the Sixers did not.
Philadelphia started the fourth quarter by missing 12 of their first 13 shots. The Lakers, fueled by Lin, went in the opposite direction. When the Sixers had snapped the funk with a second free throw of the period, their lead had turned into a 15-point deficit, thanks for the Lakers’ 20-4 run. Lin had 12 of those 20 points.
Brett Brown even tried double-teaming him to slow him down, but that did not help much.
"We tried to double-team Lin with about seven minutes left, and he still found ways to score," Brown said. "We tried multiple people on him and tried to get length on him with Jerami Grant. We tried to blitz him and searched to try to find ways to defend him, but we struggled all night."
Lin finished with a game-high 29 points. In a game full of sub-par players, no one else on either team scored 14.
