76ers Fall Short to Pelicans at Home, 123-115

The 76ers lose to the Pelicans at home while short-handed. Despite missing Joel Embiid, Andre Drummond, and Justin Edwards, they never seemed to get ahead of a worse Pelicans team.

Here are the takeaways from tonight’s game, and the forecast for the foreseeable future. 

Nola’s Night

The Pelicans found many different ways to score and got a lot of help from around the team. New Orleans had 6 of their 9 players score in double figures, none more crucial than CJ McCollum. McCollum had 38 points while shooting 13-24 from the field and draining 6 of 11 threes. This extends a hot streak for McCollum as just last week he had 50. It seems McCollum has always given the Sixers problems and a lot of that is due to quick and controlled movement paired with his steady stroke, he averages 40.7% from three all-time against the Sixers, on nearly 7 attempts per game. McCollum took on an assignment from both Paul George and Tyrese Maxey and found a way to score on both of them.

Meanwhile, McCollum’s teammate on the other wing, Jordan Hawkins also proved a challenge. Second-year Hawkins put up 21 points while nailing 5 of 11 from deep. Hawkins, who is not necessarily a threat from the arc, shot well above his means tonight. On the season he is 31.3% from deep on 6 attempts per game.

Dejounte Murray also had a nice game, posting a double-double, 17 points, and 10 rebounds, while also adding 6 assists.

But despite this impressive play from the starters, the Pelicans built their lead with their bench players. Every starter aside from McCollum, who was a +2, finished with a negative plus-minus. Moreover, the lowest plus-minus amongst their bench was a +14 from Brandon Boston.

In the absence of Embiid and Drummond, backup center Daniel Theis had his way, scoring 12 points on 6-9 from the field. Jose Alvarado also had a good night, just missing out on a double-double.

Overall, the Pelicans shot well above their mean as a team, shooting 45% from three (33.6% as a team on the year, 27th in the league), and 48.4% (44% on the year, 29th in the league).

Close but No Cigar

The Sixers were certainly stretched thin tonight, due to the absence of their two main centers, they were forced to go small for the majority of the game. Their 3rd center, Adem Bona, only got 14 minutes of run, scored 0 points, and fouled 4 times.

Since they were forced to go small, the Pelicans were using bigs like Yves Missi and Theis decoys to get defenders scrambling on the perimeter, hence why the Pelicans shot above their average.

Offensively, the Sixers look very mediocre. Tonight they relied on George, Maxey, and Kelly Oubre very heavily. Those 3 players took 66% of the team’s total field goals tonight, along with 74% of the team’s free throws, and scored 66% of the team’s points. Each of the shots was very efficient, reaching about 50% from the field each.

Maxey really couldn’t find a rhythm all night as he drew two very tough assignments in Murray and Alvarado. Maxey shot a poor 2 of 9 from three but did make up for it by finding ways to the rim and getting fouled. 

What’s to Come?

Their next week consists of an away matchup at Orlando and then a home back-to-back against the west-leading OKC Thunder then the New York Knicks. The Sixers remain 1.5 games back of the final play-in spot and 4.5 games back of the first non-play-in playoff spot.

The Sixers are starting to hit a rough patch in their schedule so it will be necessary to weather the storm and pick up cheap wins and not let up ones like tonight against a subpar team at home.  

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