By Sean Kennedy
Coming off a close loss to the Thunder and a convincing victory against the Celtics, Philadelphia had some positive momentum heading into their preseason match-up against the new-look Brooklyn Nets. Playing in front of a sparsely populated Wells Fargo Center crowd and with Zumoff and Rose back behind the mics, there was more optimism surrounding this game than you might have expected two weeks ago. However, despite playing without Deron Williams (ankle injury) and Paul Pierce (preseason rest), the Nets quickly disabused Sixers fans of those notions, jumping out to an early lead on their way to a 127-97 rout of Philadelphia. In the process, we were reminded that Philadelphia is going to lose 60+ games this year and games like this will be the norm as the team slogs through this campaign (which is fine, it’s basically the point of this season to lose as many games as possible).
In particular, defensive rebounding and the failure to rotate to open three-point shooters doomed the Sixers. Brooklyn secured as many offensive rebounds (18) as Philadelphia had defensive rebounds, led by former Sixer, now current Sixers menace Reggie Evans with 6. This issue should persist throughout the season as Philadelphia is undersized and thin across the front line. The Nets also had three players drain at least 4 three-pointers in Joe Johnson (4-8), Mirza Teletovic (5-9), and Chris Johnson (5-7). Some of that was the by-product of the defense scrambling following those offensive rebounds, but the team will hopefully improve in this area as the cavalcade of young players on the roster continue to learn sound defensive principles.
Notable Observations:
- The night was a mixed bag for Sixers rookie Michael Carter-Williams, as you might expect for a player with only a handful of professional games under his belt. On the one hand, he did some nice things offensively, making 3-7 three-pointers, and showing some great court vision finding open teammates in the lane. However, on the defensive end, he lost his man, Shaun Livingston, on two occasions in the first quarter, allowing him to collect offensive rebounds, and was abused by Livingston in the post on one possession. Livingston did not miss a shot on the evening, nearly posting a triple-double with 17 points, 9 rebounds, and 8 assists, and much of that fell on MCW.
- Philadelphia was clearly making a concerted effort to get up the court as quickly as possible. One sequence that stood out was Hawes collecting the ball out of the hoop after a Brook Lopez bucket, flinging it to Carter-Williams near half court, who dished it to James Anderson under the basket who was fouled. The entire sequence took 4 seconds and we should expect to see plenty more like it this season, as Philadelphia will need to rely on quick offense to score.
- Royce White flashed his talent skill-set, sinking a three-pointer and showing off his play-making ability by finding Thad Young for easy lay-ins on two separate occasions. He also looked out of control at times, tripping over his own feet a couple times while driving into the lane, as it’s clear his game isn’t as polished as everyone else out there due to his intermittent time off over the past year.
- Tony Wroten once again put forth a disappointing effort, going 0-5 from the field and also looking out of control for much of the game. After the first two preseason games, it looked as though Wroten had the 6th-man role locked up, and might even press Carter-Williams for the starting job, but he couldn’t look further away at this point.
Tanking Implications: All in all, this performance was exactly what we should expect to see often throughout this ‘rebuilding’ season. While Carter-Williams looked inconsistent but promising out there, none of the other young guys really stepped up to establish themselves. It would also be nice to see the team put forth more of a competitive effort, especially defensively. 4/5 tanks: 
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