Why Did the Philadelphia 76ers Fall Apart Early vs. Brooklyn Nets on Thursday?

PHILADELPHIA, PA -- At this point in the NBA season, it's no secret the Philadelphia 76ers are the best team in the league when playing on their home court. With a league's best record of 25-2 in Philly heading into Thursday's matchup, it almost felt like there was a guaranteed victory on deck for the Sixers.

Although the record is pretty, the results of the matchups don't always reflect that dominant win-loss comparison. At the end of the day, it is the NBA and wins don't always come by easy. And in a sick and twisted way, the Sixers embrace the struggle of having to claw their ways out of matchups with a win, as opposed to picking up blowout victories.

On Thursday, the Sixers were hosting a short-handed Brooklyn Nets team that's barely hanging on to a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. Knowing the Sixers were going to be short-staffed themselves, a blowout victory wasn't expected. However, nobody expected to Sixers to fall into a 20-point deficit at a point either -- especially after seeing how dominant they were at the beginning of the matchup.

With seven minutes left to go in the first quarter, the Sixers had a 20-4 lead over the Nets. By the time the quarter wrapped up, though, the Nets had come back within six points as the Sixers led 26-20. From then on, Brooklyn took control of the game and led the Sixers by ten points when halftime rolled around.

So what went wrong for the Sixers early on? "We didn't guard," said Sixers' head coach Brett Brown after the game. "To me, [the Nets] went on an onslaught of scoring. I felt like our fight; our spirit took a little bit of a dent there." That was obvious, as the Sixers quickly fell apart and looked sloppier than ever after getting off to a red-hot start early.

Fortunately, the Sixers weren't willing to give up. Although their woes were still evident early on in the second half, the Sixers sharpened up later on down the stretch and put it all together as they played aggressively on defense, and figured out ways to score on offense.

"To the guys' credit, they came back and fixed it with some momentum [back in the second quarter]," Brown mentioned. "I thought we did a good job in the second half of not turning the ball over. We played with a greater pace. [At halftime] I mentioned to the group, 'it's not an X's and O's type of thing.' It was, 'let's re-kindle our spirit. Let's get that going first.' Just playing with that type of intensity just changed the game."

It changed the game indeed. Although the Sixers couldn't make it out of the fourth quarter with the win, their overtime dominance was clear as they prevented the Nets from scoring more than a single point, while picking up nine of their own to acquire their 26th win at home with a 112-104 victory over Brooklyn.

Justin Grasso covers the Philadelphia 76ers for Sports Illustrated. You can follow him on Twitter: @JGrasso_