In a back and forth game of 16 lead changes and eight ties, the Sixers fell short at the buzzer.
The Philadelphia 76ers dropped game one of their four-game road trip to the Orlando Magic Friday night. The 98-97 loss moved the Sixers to 7-9 on the road as Embiid missed a three at the buzzer.
Storyline of the Game:
Markelle Fultz
Yes, Philadelphia needs to just let go of Markelle Fultz.
Yes, he will still be the main focal point for any near future tip-offs between these two teams.
In what seems to be the crazy ex-spouse situation for the Sixers, Markelle Fultz will continually highlight any game against the Sixers. Despite his shooting woes during his short tenure in Philly, he seemed to have gotten himself together.
In his win over his former team Friday night, Fultz posted a solid 13 point, three rebounds, six assist outing. Despite going 5-10 from the floor and 2-4 from deep, his foul line struggles still haunt the youngster, where he went 1-4.
Takeaways:
Positives:
The Sixers’ defense never fails to amaze. Their ten team steals and three blocks surpassed the Magic defensively. Their ability to defend off the ball, even without Matisse Thybulle, kept this game close. Orlando pulled away by as many as 11 but Philadelphia kept the game in order led by Joel Embiid (24 pts, 11 rebs) and Tobias Harris (24 pts, 11 rebs).
Ben Simmons also continued his well-rounded show, where the point guard guarded Fultz well all night. With this, he also posted a near 13 pts, 9 rebounds, 7 assists offensive night.
Negatives:
The Sixers are a weird team. Go out two nights ago, dominate the Bucks. A couple of nights later, they get ousted by the mediocre Magic squad. This season, the Magic are serving as the Nets would to the Sixers in previous seasons, being that one inferior team that just matches up well against them,
This is no reason to overthink this; there is no reason to think the Sixers are a bad team; there is no reason to think Philadelphia needs to hit the panic button and trade the team away.
The Magic just match up well against the Sixers this season. It’s as simple as that.
The only scary part of this loss is that the rest of this road trip, they visit Miami, Indiana, and Houston. Orlando was the team the Sixers needed to beat to feel comfortable losing a game or (maybe) two to the much more successful teams.
Onto the Next
Philadelphia stays on the road as they stay in Flordia and move down to South Beach to face the Heat Saturday night. It will be game three of their four meetings, and the Sixers look to officially win the season series against Miami and former friend Jimmy Butler.
Tip-off is at a primetime 8 p.m. EST, airing on NBC Sports Philadelphia.
Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports
