The Sixers hung close with the Nets for 36 minutes, but were outscored 25-10 in the final quarter while shooting 4-15 en route to a 88-70 loss to the Brooklyn Nets in NYC on Friday night. The Sixers fall to 2-20 on the season while the Nets sit in 8th place in the Eastern Conference at 9-12.
In an attempt to find some offense for the starting lineup, Coach Brett Brown bumped Henry Sims to the bench and gave Robert Covington the first start of his NBA career tonight. Shout out to Big Shot Bobbington, who just weeks ago was playing in the D-League and is now making his first NBA start. That can’t possibly have happened to many D-league players ever, and says as much about Covington as it does about the Sixers. Brown’s gambit paid off on the micro level as Covington went off for 20 points to lead all scorers in the game, shooting 6-10 from downtown. In fact, Covington didn’t take one shot from inside the arc other than going 2-2 from the FT line.
However, the boost in scoring didn’t trickle down to anyone else, as fellow starters Nerlens Noel (0-8 from the field), Hollis Thompson (1-6), and Luc Mbah a Moute (2-7) combined for 10 pts in about 84 minutes of court time. Tony Wroten, the team’s leading scorer on the season, made his return from a knee injury tonight and went for 12 points but on only 2-12 shooting. Ultimately the Sixers shot 31.9% from the floor, and followed up an 8-14 shooting performance from downtown in the first half with a 3-14 dud in the second half. The Sixers continue to search for reliable offense, but of late Covington has really been the only consistent scorer. Michael Carter-Williams had a decent night 14 pts, 6 rebs, and 9 assists on 5-12 shooting, but dare I say that McDubs, who appears to be really working hard to set up his teammates, probably needs to be more aggressive in finding shots for himself. Him and Wroten are really the only guys on the team that could somewhat consistently put up 20pts a night, and once the book gets out on Covington he won’t get nearly as many wide open looks as the Nets oddly gave him tonight (no respect for D-League MVPs apparently).
While the Sixers offense was problematic tonight, the Sixers interior D was downright absent. With the departure of Brandon Davies in Wednesday’s trade (to the Nets – wonder if he got a ride up?), the Sixers are suddenly looking awfully thin in the front court (hence signing of Ronald Roberts Jr from the D-League to add a bit of size). Coach Brown's decided to put Sims in the pivot for the second unit so as to save some size for the bench. While ultimately this didn’t affect the boards to much (Sixers outrebounded 47-37), the change in assignments and shuffling of lineups really hurt the Sixers defensive rotations in the paint. The Sixers were outscored in the interior 42-18, including what seemed like an endless string of wide open dunks. Mason Plumlee at one point had 7 dunks on 9 baskets on the way to being the Nets leading scorer with 18pts. I have no statistics to back up this statement, but I swear the Plumlee boys destroy us every time we see one.
Oh, and what about newest Net Brandon Davies?
Brandon Davies played 1min 19sec for Nets, finished with twice as many points as Hollis Thompson and Nerlens Noel COMBINED. #SixersTalk
— Sixerdelphia (@Sixerdelphia) December 13, 2014
Really in the end though the Sixers D was passable, they held the Nets to well under their season average of 95 pts/game. It was more the offensive woes that did them in, and while Covington is proving to be a really nice offensive addition, the Sixers are going to need a lot more from guys like Nerlens and Hollis. After playing the Grizzlies in Philly tomorrow night, the Sixers play the Celtics and Hornets at home, and the Magic on the road. Those are some of the worst teams in the NBA, so you’d like to see them grab a W in one of those 3 games.
To get that win though, we need some more offense. And I think the D-League is running out of ex-MVPs.
