The Philadelphia 76ers managed to pull off an impressive victory on Sunday when they visited Crypto.com Arena and defeated the Los Angeles Clippers 121-107 Sunday afternoon. The Sixers withstood numerous runs from Los Angeles in order to hold on for victory.
Philadelphia led by 17 in the first before the Clippers rallied to tie it. The Sixers then responded and pushed the lead up to 21. It was an impressive performance for the Sixers.
Cam Payne provided a huge boost for the Sixers with 23 points coming off the bench. 13 of those points came in the fourth quarter as Payne helped Philadelphia finally put the Clippers away.
“I’m just trying to bring some grit to the game, some energy and a lot of fun,” Payne told reporters after the victory. “As people always say, it’s a breeze at the end of the day, so make sure you have fun no matter what, win or lose, so tonight we were on the positive side, we won and we just had fun with I show my teammates some love while I’m out there.
Along with a big night from Payne, the Sixers received 24 points from Tyrese Maxey and another 24 from Tobias Harris. Maxey, in particular, made some big plays in the second half to help Philadelphia get there. He had 19 points in the second half, 11 in the fourth quarter, as the Sixers responded to some big runs from the Clippers.
“We held on and didn’t get discouraged at all,” added coach Nick Nurse. “We kept getting baskets. We kept getting loose balls, rebounds, turnovers, etc. I thought we played pretty fast. We went up the field quite quickly a few times and it was huge. When they equalized and we responded with a 5 or 6-0, we brought it back to five or six there, and that gave us a lot of confidence. You keep looking up and it was five o’clock and it seemed to stay there and it started going up from there.
The nurse is right. Every time the Sixers needed a bucket, Payne came up with a big shot. Maxey then went to the basket and made a big play before Harris made a big shot or Kelly Oubre Jr. made a big play. It was an overall effort.
“We knew this game was a must for us,” added Harris. “We made that effort there, and there were some guys who hit some big, timely shots for us tonight as well to make sure the momentum didn’t swing in their direction. There was a point in the third where it sucked, but from there we managed to find something to reach for. Tyrese came down to create a few plays, and we got a few more stops. So the main play for us was to make stops and find ways to create mismatch to go down and score.
The Sixers will look to get at least 2-2 on this trip when they visit the Sacramento Kings on Monday.
