Looking to end their West Coast road trip with a victory, the Sixers took on the Sacramento Kings on Monday night. After an eventful first quarter, the Kings took complete control of the game and easily handled the Sixers en route to a 108-96 victory. Here’s what comes out of the finale of this roadie:
Tyrese Maxey opens with a heater (and Keegan Murray responds)
The Sixers looked lifeless in the opening minutes of the game, as Sacramento took an early 13-5 lead. While the Sixers were on the second leg of a road back-to-back and the final game of a long, distant road trip, this had all the elements of a total explosion from start to finish.
Then Maxey decided to take over.
Maxey scored the Sixers’ first 16 points, putting them in the lead at one point in that run. He finished the first quarter with a remarkable 21-point line on 7-11 shooting from the field, including 4-6 on shooting from beyond the arc – including a ridiculously deep three-and-out that stunned the Sacramento crowd.
“They let me play a lot of one-on-ones,” Maxey said of his run after the game. “I was just trying to be aggressive for my team, and that’s what I did.”
However, the Sixers still finished the first quarter trailing Sacramento, 31-25, thanks in large part to a terrific effort from Murray, the Kings’ impressive second-year wing, who scored 17 points on eight shots during the period. quarter. No player other than Maxey and Murray had more than four points in the entire quarter.
Avoidable mistakes plague Sixers in first half
Maxey finished the first half with 26 points on just 13 shots. Unfortunately for him, almost every other Sixer shot himself in the foot. They made costly mistakes after costly mistakes: they were called for three illegal screens in the first half alone, KJ Martin committed four fouls in seven minutes, head coach Nick Nurse strangely used his challenge during a relatively innocuous off-field call. the second quarter (and lost the challenge) and Maxey was given a technical foul after being whistled for a foul that likely would have been overturned had Nurse not lost his previous challenge.
Considering how many mistakes they made, the Sixers didn’t even have to be remotely competitive during intermission. And that’s why the aforementioned Maxey radiator was so important.
The Sixers are sorely missing Kelly Oubre Jr.
Oubre suffered a heavy fall on his shoulder during the Sixers game earn against the Los Angeles Clippers on Sunday afternoon, but returned to action shortly after and looked good for the remainder of the contest. However, on Monday he was listed on the injury report with shoulder soreness and was ruled out about an hour before tipoff.
With Joel Embiid still on the sidelines, Maxey is in desperate need of consistent support work, and Oubre has become the team’s secondary scoring option more often than anyone — including, notably, Tobias Harris, whose difficulties resumed in this one. Without Oubre’s consistent and effective pressure at the rim, Maxey found himself stranded on an island offensively: Harris had a brutal performance, Buddy Hield couldn’t overcome the heavy boos that rained down from his old fan base and Cam Payne finally came crashing back to Earth.
“He obviously gave us a punch and he plays both ways,” Nurse said after the game. “Not getting a lot out of a few of our starters there, offensively, has obviously been tough.”
New Sixer makes a good first impression
The Sixers signed DJ Wilson to a 10-day contract before Sunday’s game, and Nurse decided to give him some rotation minutes in the second half in Sacramento after Bamba failed to make an impact on the game. Wilson, who lacks the size and strength of a typical center, is primarily used as a small ball five whose athleticism allows him to switch to the perimeter when necessary. On his taping, Wilson hit triples on each of his first two offensive possessions, then threw down an alley-oop dunk on a Kyle Lowry lob and had a shot blocked flatly at the rim before also blocking an attempt at three points.
“He was excellent,” Nurse said after the game. “He played a long time there, and obviously very well. I thought he did pretty much everything right. He fought really hard. I thought he looked good.”
Wilson’s path to consistent playing time is difficult to visualize, but on a night in which Bamba showed all of his most significant flaws, it didn’t hurt to take a look. eye to Wilson.
A Brief Injury Alert
Buddy Hield’s struggles continued Monday, and the Sacramento crowd appreciated it: Hield’s departure from the Kings in 2022 was messy, and fans booed him as a result.
“It’s just fun,” Hield said of his cold reception. “It’s really not that big of a deal for me.”
What was almost bad was when Hield had an awkward landing in the final moments of the match and limped to the locker room. Hield immediately took an x-ray and the results were negative: it appears the sniper avoided any sort of serious injury.
Sixers fall to Kings, finish West Coast trip 1-3
The Sixers played four games against four very good teams during that stretch, and given their several notable absences, just splitting the four games and going 2-2 would have been a win. But they simply didn’t have the firepower to keep pace with the Kings for 48 minutes, as their offense followed a similar script to the team’s. loss against the Los Angeles Lakers in the second game of the trip: a decent start, a shaky middle and a brutal end.
In retrospect, the Lakers’ loss is the one that should sting the most: the Sixers failed to take advantage of a shaky performance from LeBron James, and in doing so, dropped a game that hurt quite a bit. Things don’t get any easier: The Sixers return home for a rematch against the Clippers on Wednesday night before hitting the road again and taking on the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Embiid can’t return soon enough for these Sixers.
