Sixers explain what went wrong on final play in loss to Trail Blazers
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The Philadelphia 76ers had a chance down by two points late to try and force overtime on the road against the Portland Trail Blazers, but they were not able to execute a final play and they turned it over.
Ben Simmons was in the inbounds passer and he tried to get it into Joel Embiid, but former Sixer Robert Covington disrupted the play and the Blazers came up with it. They then had to foul Damian Lillard and he made both free throws to ice it as the Sixers fell 118-114 on the road.
The Sixers had a few options on the play as they tried to get it into Embiid or Tobias Harris, but the Blazers did a good job of snuffing it out.
“Portland did a great job of sagging off the passer,” said coach Doc Rivers. “Really, it was supposed to go to Joel or Tobias, or Seth (Curry) in the left corner, we had three options on it, I haven’t seen it yet. I didn’t think it was a very run well-run play, I thought I could run a better play, but listen, I didn’t want to turn the ball over either. So that’s tough. Tough way to end the game.”
Simmons, who had an overall terrific night, made just one mistake and it happened to be that last pass. He explained that he was looking for either Embiid or Harris, but Portland cut it off.
“Whoever was open, you know, the available man to get a bucket,” said Simmons. “We had Jo down low to get to the rim, and then Tobias come off a curl. I think we were looking for a foul, but obviously, they’re not gonna call anything like that late game. We ran it, we weren’t successful, we move on. We just gotta get better.”
The big fella had himself another terrific game with 35 points and nine rebounds, but the former Sixer came up with a big play.
“It’s tough with the way Cov was guarding,” Embiid explained. “We really had no angle to throw the ball, either to Tobias, or me. It was just a tough play overall. Maybe next time we could use different plays, especially if we’re gonna be guarded like that.”
The Sixers now have to just move on to the next one as they face the Phoenix Suns on Saturday to continue the road trip.
“It’s a bad loss,” Embiid added. “We gotta lock in the whole game. Like I mentioned, the beginning of the fourth was a game-changer. In the first quarter, we ended up coming back, but they just made a bunch of 3s to start the game and they got going and we didn’t set the tone from the beginning of the game. We just gotta focus for 48 minutes.”
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