By Sean Kennedy (@PhillyFastBreak)
Plenty of times during the Process era, the Philadelphia 76ers lost games because the other team was simply more talented. To the credit of Brett Brown and the players on the roster, it wasn’t often that the Sixers due to lack of effort. You couldn’t say that about the team’s performance on Wednesday night, however, as they sleepwalked through the game in a 113-95 defeat.
Facing a Dallas Mavericks that even now sits as the worst rebounding team in the league with a 46.6 REB%, the Sixers were out-rebounded 51-39, the 51 rebounds representing a season-high for Dallas. Surely, some of it had to do with the absence of Joel Embiid and Robert Covington, who sat out with a bruised hand fresh off two straight double-digit rebounding games.
Still, there was no excuse for little-used bench player Salah Mejri going off for 16 points and a career-high 17 rebounds, 8 of those boards coming on the offensive end. In contrast, the guy the Sixers started at center, Jahlil Okafor, had just a 1 single rebound in 24 minutes. Not surprising then that Jahlil was a -17 despite leading the team in scoring with 16 points.
Okafor must have gotten used to being on the bench where his only responsibility is watching the game, because that’s all he did here while eschewing any sort of boxing out responsibility.
Even when he looked to be giving some sort of effort on Dallas end of the court, it wasn’t with any sort of fundamental defensive principles in mind. I don’t know what Okafor is doing here, but it’s not how you defend a side pick-and-roll.
Hopefully, opposing executives are seeing the 16 points and think there’s a useful player in there leading up to this month’s trade deadline. I don’t see it.
Meanwhile, Seth Curry seems to have found a home in Dallas, and looked terrific out there with Seth Curry 22 points, 6 assists, and 4 steals. Again, this was a situation where the Sixers missed Robert Covington, as he likely would have been shifted onto Curry to stem his offensive onslaught. Nik Stauskas was certainly not up to the challenge, as -28 plus/minus would attest.
With the victory, Dallas moved ahead of the Sixers in the standings, so at least the night wasn’t a waste from a lottery perspective. If this is the sort of performance we can expect to see from the team without Embiid and Covington, we might as well not even bother tuning in tonight against San Antonio.
Other Game Notes:
- Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot made his first career start in place of Covington. He was largely fine, but will have to learn to defend without fouling as he’s out there for longer periods of time; TLC picked up 5 personal fouls in 23 minutes.
- With a freshly-inked multi-year contract in his pocket, Chasson Randle had 8 points and 2 assists in 12 minutes off the bench. As bad as Sergio Rodriguez has been playing lately, we may see more and more of Randle as the season progresses.
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