Philadelphia 76ers can’t break 100 in ugly loss to Toronto
With four days to prepare for the contest, the Philadelphia 76ers came out flat in an ugly 108-95 Game 1 loss to the Toronto Raptors.
What and ugly, uninspired game.
I know there are a million ways to describe the Philadelphia 76ers‘ 108-95 loss to the Toronto Raptors, but after spending three straight days watching the next generation of Philadelphia Eagles be selected in the 2019 NFL Draft, with a beautiful 12-9 chaser by the Philadelphia Phillies, it’s hard not to be incredibly disappointed by the efforts Brett Brown‘s squad put on display for the world, Drake, and Shawn Mendez to see.
What more can I say; sometimes things just don’t turn out right.
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Well, I guess technically that isn’t true, since pretty much every 50-50 ball fell in the Raptors’ favor, as the team shot 51.9 percent from the field and their top two players, Kawhi Leonard and Pascal Siakam combined for 74 points on 6-11 from 3 point range. The Sixers, on the other hand, combined for 39.3 percent from the field, 34 percent from 3 point range and scored 14 points in the fourth quarter.
And somehow, things were even worse than the stat line appeared.
Because of the team’s already small bench, made worse by Mike Scott‘s injury, Brett Brown had to overwork his starters yet again; playing an already injured Joel Embiid 30 minutes by midway through the fourth, while playing his other four starters an average of 35.5 minutes.
Sure, James Ennis still played very well as the team’s swing wing off the bench, hitting a rare 3 while scoring 11 points in 21 minutes of action, but the rest of the bench combined for 13 points in 47 minutes of action.
And worst of all; it wasn’t even fun to watch.
Sure, there were a few flashy plays here and there, a nice one-man fast break by Ben Simmons here, a sweet 3 from Embiid there, but after dueling with the Brooklyn Nets over at least the first three games of their Round 1 series, this game was like watching a cat toy with a mouse. Sure, the mouse will look like maybe, just maybe it can get away, but in the end, it’s a cat chasing a mouse; it’s not a fair fight.
Next. Jimmy Butler is paramount to stop Kawhi Leonard. dark
With Philly now off until April 29th, Brett Brown, Monty Williams, and the remainder of the Philadelphia 76ers staff are going to have to work overtime to get this team back into contention for Game 2. Otherwise, the City of Brotherly Love may soon be moving on to OTAs and baseball a lot sooner than we’d have initially hoped.