PHILADELPHIA — The Philadelphia 76ers were aiming for a 3-3 homestand when they played host to the New York Knicks on Saturday. That would have been a win for them after the two tough losses to open the homestand, but it wasn’t meant to be as they fell to the Knicks 112-109. They dropped to 24-20 on the season and 12-13 at home.
Joel Embiid had a phenomenal first half as he scored 28 points on 10-for-12 shooting and made it look easy against Knicks big man Karl-Anthony Towns and Mitchell Robinson. The big fella started recalling his 2023 MVP days as he went to work and helped the Sixers take a lead.
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However, a poor third quarter did them in as the Knicks outscored Philadelphia 30-13. They held Embiid scoreless in the third and he finished with 10 in the second half on 3-for-9 shooting.
“As a team, we just—everybody’s gonna focus on offense, but defensively, we just didn’t get stops,” Embiid said. “Playing against a set defense is always gonna be harder than running in transition and getting easy one. So I think that was our biggest issue. Just not getting enough stops in the third. We did a better job in the fourth, but too much to overcome.”
Embiid has a good point. It’s much easier when Philadelphia is able to get out and run, but it was a struggle in the third. The Knicks shot 54.2% from the floor and 4-for-9 from deep in the third. Philadelphia buckled down in the fourth, but it wasn’t enough.
Another big issue was the rebounding. The Knicks won the rebounding battle 53-38 and the second-chance points battle 26-4.
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“The first two matchups, we did a pretty good job against them,” added Embiid. “We just gotta do a better job. I thought it wasn’t necessarily the bigs. I thought their guards crashed the boards, so make sure we check our men, especially on the perimeter, and take them away from them.”
To Embiid’s point, the Knicks received 10 rebounds from Robinson and six from Towns, but Josh Hart swooped in for 13 rebounds and OG Anunoby grabbed seven including a big putback slam late in the fourth quarter. Coach Nick Nurse echoed Embiid’s senitments.
“Listen, I think certainly a huge concern fresh out of the game, right?” said Nurse. “I mean, it was a concern at halftime. You usually have to use two on Robinson, right? And that gets a little dangerous, because you’re putting two on him, and that leaves—it’s like double team. It leaves one guy free? I think a lot of their, I mean, he got his share, but a lot of them came from the guards swooping in from the corners and underneath the basket.”
The Sixers had to put two bodies on Robinson because he can dominate a game like that on the glass. However, it left other players open to make the plays they did for the Knicks. It is an area of the game that has to be cleaned up going forward.
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“Once you put two on a real big like that, we got to probably almost make a rotation to the next guy coming in,” Nurse continued. “Usually there’s at least one guy not going and you got to use all five, right? You got to use all five and that gets a little tough sometimes with somebody shot contesting or something, but certainly a concern after a game, but I think for the most part, we’ve done a pretty decent job.”
The Sixers, for the most part, have been solid in the second-chance points department, but it wasn’t there on Saturday.
“My worst for me, it’s like, usually when we have a game like this, and we give up 19 tonight, but usually we’ll give up 15 and we’ll get 17 ourselves, right?” Nurse finished. “So it’s kind of like we could kind of balance it out, and we just didn’t get any at the other end tonight, either. So certainly, like, probably the determining factor in the game.”
The Sixers will look to bounce back when they take on the Charlotte Hornets on Monday on the road.
This article originally appeared on Sixers Wire: Joel Embiid, Sixers react to struggles in tough home loss to Knicks
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