CLEVELAND -- The Philadelphia 76ers paid a visit to the Cleveland Cavaliers on Friday and it didn't go well as they fell 119-95 on the road. The loss drops Philadelphia to 1-1 in Group B play for the NBA Cup and the blowout loss will hurt its overall point differential in the standings.
Jaylen Brown had 20 points, five rebounds, and five assists for Philadelphia, VJ Edgecombe had 19 points and four steals, and Tyrese Maxey added 17 points and four assists. LeBron James had eight points, three assists, and seven rebounds. Joel Embiid shot 0-for-9 for six points.
Here are the three biggest takeaways for the Sixers following the loss:
James' turnovers and poor spacing
The Sixers fell behind by 15 in the opening quarter as they couldn't take care of the ball. James committed two of his
six turnovers on the night in the first quarter and Philadelphia just had a tough time finding any rhythm. Philadelphia shot just 30% in the first quarter and 2-for-9 from deep as the Cavaliers opened up a big lead. The cause of the turnovers was a number of different things, but the Sixers didn't have the proper spacing in this one as Philadelphia had a tough time finding any open looks.
"Yeah, I mean, I think that it certainly didn't help us," coach Nick Nurse said of the poor spacing. "I think there was either—I mean, I think officially it was only two turnovers, but could have been four. I guess they gave Jo shot attempts on a couple of those that he might have got hit on the sweep up. I guess they gave those shot attempts, but yeah, we just got off to a poor start with taking care of the ball, and that hurts because I think (Donovan) Mitchell's first eight points were in transition, right? You got all these game plans and everything, and he's going to be aggressive. You hate to kind of gift him eight out of the blocks like that, and our poor offensive execution was a result of that."
Embiid's shooting struggles and poor spacing
Embiid shot 0-for-9, and some of that is on him, but the Cavaliers really pushed up on him and didn't give him much space to operate out on the floor. Philadelphia had a tough time getting into any type of position to succeed when the big fella had the ball. The Sixers are normally a team that will find the open spots within a defensive system and it just wasn't as sharp with its execution against a Cavs team that certainly was looking for revenge after the loss in Philadelphia back on Oct. 22.
Nurse stated on Embiid's night:
"Yeah, I mean it was tough night for most everybody, to be honest with you. So, I think, again, just the overall energy, just movement in general. I think our defense wasn't nearly moving the way we needed it to. I didn't think we were chasing down rebounds early. Offense was stagnant because of lack of movement, too. It was just a poor movement game in general. Obviously, you know Jo struggled. Didn't get a ton of great looks. Had had a few. They, obviously, crowded him a lot. All that kind of stuff, but I didn't think we played well enough when he had the ball away from the ball cutting and spacing and stuff. And we've been really good at that. It's been like a pretty good scoring situations for us, whether he's shooting or not, and we just didn't get to a cutting and spacing game very well when he had the ball."
Cavaliers avoid the collapse in the third
To Philadelphia's credit, it did cut the deficit to five on a Brown triple with 5:59 to go in the third, but the Cavs then hit Evan Mobley for a layup, rookie Meleek Thomas had himself a layup, and then Peyton Watson and Mitchell got going as Cleveland led by 17 heading into the fourth. The Sixers never seriously threatened from there as they couldn't find that offensive groove they were searching for all night and it ended with the Cavs handing Philadelphia a 24-point loss.
"Yeah, I think they hit back-to-back 3s on us, and kind of, kind of, they hit a 3," Nurse recalled. "We obviously didn't score. They hit another one, and I think, it's too bad because I thought at that point, as poorly as we were playing, and we were still hanging around, that if we could, if we could kind of click in energy-wise and start doing some things, we were going to be in good shape, you know? But they are the ones that kind of clicked away from us. And I think that even zapped out whatever energy we had. It zapped it even more."
This article originally appeared on Sixers Wire: 3 biggest takeaways for Sixers following NBA Cup loss to Cavaliers
