Despite getting beat by both the LA Clippers and the LA Lakers earlier in the week, the Sixers had an opportunity to end their west coast road trip on a slight high note. Facing the “tanking” Warriors, Philly could escape the stretch of road games going 2-2, without three of their starters.
Alas, in typical 2019-20 76ers fashion, they were unable to achieve such a feat. The underdog Warriors rallied at home, topping the Sixers by a score of 118-114.
Game Recap
Entering into the Saturday night match-up, Philly were clear favorites. Golden State has been without Klay Thompson all year, and both Stephen Curry and Draymond Green were made inactive prior to the game with the Sixers.
Even without Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons, and Josh Richardson, this was a game people expected Philadelphia to win.
Despite all this, the first half started off less than stellar. Up just two points at the half, the Sixers had failed to really get things going. Tobias Harris was just 3-14 from the field, while the rest of the team was struggling from behind the arc.
The one positive from the first half? Al Horford was borderline dominant when he got the ball. He had 13 points on 6-7 shooting through the first two periods of play, really excelling on the low block.
The third quarter was back and forth for the most part. Rarely talked about guys like Damion Lee and Eric Paschall were holding things down for Golden State.
By the time the final quarter of play rolled around, it looked like Tobias Harris was finally getting into his grove. Finishing the game with 24 points on 10-24 shooting, he had a noticeably better second half. Despite that, the feisty Warriors squad fought to the very last second.
This actually resulted in the Sixers being down one with less than 30 seconds to go. Horford missed an open three, Shake Milton missed a deep three, and Golden State proceeded to get the rebound. Two foul shots later and the Warriors were now up three.
With just seven seconds to go, Brett Brown and the Sixers ran a play for Furkan Korkmaz (who wasn’t having a great game FYI). He received the inbounds pass, and promptly stepped out of bounds, effectively ending the game.
A Very, Very Bad Loss
Simply put, this was a very bad loss for the Sixers. This should be of little surprise, seeing as the Warriors are pulling a tank job and the Sixers still had two highly paid players available tonight.
Harris struggled in the first half, Horford was ineffective late, bench guys like Thybulle and Korkmaz were shaky at times, and Brett Brown was drastically outcoached by Steve Kerr from start to finish.
Silver Lining
The very small and slight silver lining we can all take away from this one? Al Horford had himself another very solid outing.
After posting a career-high +41 against the Kings on Thursday night, Horford turned around and had a 22 point, 10 rebound, seven assist performance in The Bay. While it’s hard to feel anything other than disappointment after a loss like that, it’s a good sign to see Horford playing above-average ball again.
The Sixers will get a couple days off to reset and regroup before hosting the Pistons on Wednesday. Philly is expecting Embiid to potentially be available later this week, as the team looks to claw their way back up in the eastern conference standings.
