Sloppy, sluggish Sixers can't contain LeVert, fall to Nets

Don’t crown the Sixers NBA Champions just yet.

On Thursday, squaring off with a Brooklyn Nets team playing without superstar duo Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, the Sixers faltered for just the second time this season to drop to 7-2, falling 122-109 in ugly fashion and snapping their win streak at 5 games. Playing on the second night of a back-to-back, Philadelphia appeared a step slow and lacked energy in general.

The Sixers failed to contain Caris LeVert in the half court, who produced 22 points, 7 rebounds and ten assists. Joe Harris caught fire from deep for Brooklyn, making six of his nine 3-point attempts off the bench on his way to a game-high 28 points. The Nets also controlled the interior, with the big man tandem of Jarrett Allen and Deandre Jordan grabbing 11 rebounds apiece and constantly making life difficult on Sixers in the restricted area.

But the story of this one was sloppiness.

The Sixers gifted the Nets 35 points off 20 turnovers while only forcing 12 of their own. It continued one of the few troubling trends of the early season, as their 17.1 turnovers per game were third highest in the league entering tonight. The Nets also finished with a 58-53 advantage on the glass, which marked just the second time all season the Sixers were outrebounded—the other occurred in their first loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers.

The Sixers also struggled mightily to execute their half court offense. Seth Curry sat out of the contest with a sore left ankle, and the lineup clearly missed his spacing. As a team, they shot 34.6% from deep and forced multiple clunky shots in a packed paint.

Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons in particular appeared to be out of sync. The former supplied a quiet 20 points and 12 rebounds by his standards, and the latter provided only 11 points and recorded season lows of 4 rebounds and just 2 assists. The pair combined for ten of the team’s turnovers. Shake Milton led Sixers scorers with 24 points, and Tyrese Maxey added 16 and tied for a team-high +7.

It was a lackluster effort from the start, with Brooklyn opening up a 17-5 lead six minutes into the game. The Sixers seemed to be finding their rhythm when they ripped off a 17-4 run that carried over to the second frame and put them ahead 32-28. But it wasn’t meant to be.

A Joe Harris 3-pointer began a 37-point second quarter for Brooklyn, and they rode that momentum to a 65-51 halftime lead. The Sixers pulled the game to within 8 points several times in the second half, but the Nets found a way to respond each time, and their victory was never seriously in doubt the rest of the way.

The Sixers will look to bounce back on Saturday when they host the 3-4 Denver Nuggets in a 3 p.m. matinee. Star big man Nikola Jokic will prove to be a major test for Embiid, as he is averaging a triple-double in the early going with 24.1 points, 11.7 rebounds, and 11.9 assists.