Sports Talk with Brodes: Brett Brown Struggles Late in Sixers’ Ugly Loss to the Warriors
I never would have expected there to be a "tough" loss in this road trip understanding the injuries, but this was absolutely hard to swallow. The Philadelphia Sixers found a way to lose to a team that had 14 wins prior to this match up.
It should not matter that Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons, and Josh Richardson were not available to play. The Golden State Warriors were without Steph Curry and Draymond Green.
The box score shows that this wasn't a bad night for players offensively. The defensive intensity was the major problem as the Warriors shot 55% from the field as a team.
Tobias Harris struggled early, but had an explosive second half, finishing with 24 points on the night including big buckets late.
Al Horford scored 22 points, snagged 10 rebounds, and dished seven assists. Two strong games in a row for Horford.
Glenn Robinson III, Alec Burks, Raul Neto, and Shake Milton had moments where they made shots as all four of them finished in double digits.
The big issue of the night was Brett Brown. He kept Furkan Korkmaz in the game for way too long as he wasn't providing any offense and was getting destroyed defensively.
Late in the game, Brown failed to use a timeout, with two remaining, in a crucial situation.
The sequence went like this: Horford missed a three. Harris recorded the rebound and he passed it to Mike Scott who was blocked at the rim. The ball went back out to the perimeter and the offense stalled. Milton was forced to shoot an obnoxiously deep three-pointer that had no shot of going in.
Brown NEEDED to utilize one of his timeouts there.
For the Sixers' final possession, he drew up a play for Korkmaz who was clearly not a shooting threat in this game, which resulted in him stepping out of bounds prior to getting the ball off.
It was an ugly look down the stretch. The Sixers return home on Wednesday to face the Detroit Pistons. Hopefully there is good news on the return of some injured stars.