By Brandon Apter, Sports Talk Philly editor 
The Philadelphia 76ers fell to the Los Angeles Lakers 100-89 on Friday night, but it wasn't really even as close as the score may indicate. The Sixers were off all night, communication was bad, three-point shooting was treacherous and turnovers continued to plague them as the Lakers ended their eight game losing streak in Philadelphia on ESPN.
The big man surplus proved to be an enormous problem tonight with Nerlens Noel back in the picture. Joel Embiid and Jahlil Okafor started and played 29 & 24 minutes respectively while Noel played just eight minutes, something he isn't happy about at all.
"I just want to be able to play basketball," Noel said. "I don't care who I'm playing with. I’m not an eight-minute player, so I don't know what that's about. So I don't care where, I don't. I don't really care. I need to be on the court playing basketball.
"I mean I'm too good to be playing eight minutes. Nah, that's crazy, that's crazy, that's crazy. Need to figure this sh*t out." [PhillyVoice.com]
You can check out the full video of Noel's post game comments at the bottom of this post.
It's tough to disagree with Noel here. While we all knew the amount of centers were going to be an issue, tonight proved that it will definitely not work. Embiid should not be playing the four and Okafor should not be defending the post with Joel in the game. You take your best player out of the area in which he finds the most success and you get failure. As for Noel, he should be playing more than eight minutes, whether he's coming off of injury or not. If the team plans to trade him, then they need him to play in order to get some value back in a potential deal.
"I know I'm in still in a situation," Noel said. "The smartest thing I can do is control what I can control, work hard and work on the things that I need to work on. But like I said, it's just too much on the coach's plate. So regardless of who handles it, I think there's a lot of frustration." [PhillyVoice.com]
Noel's comments come just two night's after Joel Embiid and Jahlil Okafor were paired up for the first time in the starting lineup. Embiid wasn't pleased with his play following the game and perhaps indicated that it might have indirectly been due to the two being on the floor at the same time.
“I think for once, since I've been a Sixer, I didn't trust the process tonight,” Embiid told reporters after Wednesday's loss to the Raptors. “I was just standing. I wasn't moving. I was just standing on the perimeter. I wasn't active on defense.” [CSNPhilly.com]
Brett Brown is not the man to point the finger at either, but plenty of folks will do it. The front office has to realize that the roster is extremely unbalanced and the growth of their important young talent is being stunted by this problem. Not only is Noel unhappy, but Dario Saric's playing out of position at small forward and Ersan Ilyasova has been relegated to a bench role after providing the starting lineup with a scoring boost since being acquired. It's a mess.
Philadelphia never got into any sort of rhythm tonight, allowing L.A. to start the game on a 13-0 run. The Sixers would fight back to get to within seven in the fourth quarter, but costly turnovers and defensive hiccups proved costly down the stretch. Their long range shooting was awful and even though shots weren't going down, they continued to throw them up from three-point land rather than try and drive the ball to the basket. They made all but 25 of their 31 shots from beyond the arc.
Joel Embiid led Sixers scorers with 15, Okafor and Covington had 14 and Ilyasova contributed with 13 off the bench. Nerlens Noel scored two points and had five boards in his limited playing time. Philadelphia is back in action at 6:00 p.m. on Sunday against the Nets.
