The Sixers waved the white flag before the game even started. One by one, Joel Embiid, Paul George and Tyrese Maxey were all ruled out. Despite that, the depleted Philly squad forced OKC to sweat out a close victory.
The Sixers could not overcome a gigantic difference in manpower Tuesday night against the Western Conference-leading Thunder They fell to a 118-102 loss at Wells Fargo Center, dropping to 15-23 with their third consecutive defeat.
Oklahoma City lost the second and third quarters by 10 combined points, but its talent advantage loomed large in the other two frames.
Despite most — this beat writer included — assuming that the Sixers would have their doors blown off by the NBA's best team defense and individual scorer, the nine players donning red, white and blue played with absolutely no expectation that they were going to be on the wrong end of a blowout.
Here are the three biggest takeaways for the Philadelphia 76ers following a loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder on Tuesday.
The G League lineup for the Philadelphia 76ers made things interesting against the mighty Oklahoma City Thunder on Tuesday.
The banged up version of the Philadelphia 76ers put up a great effort, but they fall short to the West-leading Oklahoma City Thunder on Tuesday.
The Sixers trailed by 21 points after the first 9:30 of “action,” by 16 after one quarter and watched the Thunder hit 13 of their first 15 shots from the field. A very MVP-like 32 points from Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and 24 from Jaylin Williams eventually asserted the Thunder’s obvious superiority.
Such a site is usually reserved for the playoffs — not a January regular-season outing. Such comes with the territory of the Oklahoma City Thunder's 134-114 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers.
The Thunder's ability to create chaos defensively has been palpable in nearly every game this season. That was the case again versus the East-leading Cavaliers on Thursday night.
For Cleveland, it was death by a thousand cuts. The Thunder topped that 30-2 run with back-to-back pick-six turnovers — with the demoralized Cavs barely bothering to jog back on the second one — shortly after a technical foul on Cavs coach Kenny Atkinson for intercepting a ref on the sideline and screaming “Call the f—ing foul!”