Nick Nurse Notes Key Factors in 76ers' Loss vs. Celtics

The Philadelphia 76ers were riding high on an eight-game win streak heading into their Tuesday night matchup against the Indiana Pacers. Although they defeated the Pacers for their eighth-straight victory two nights prior, Indiana clapped back with a win of their own, which snapped Philly’s streak.

The scheduling didn’t leave the Sixers much time to rest up and get ready for the next one. Less than 24 hours after tipping off against the Pacers, the Sixers were back on the Wells Fargo Center court hosting the Boston Celtics.

In their first outing against Boston, the Sixers found success. In a tight matchup, which featured a full-strength Celtics team, the Sixers came out on top with a 106-103 victory. When the two teams met a week later, Boson was undermanned, missing its thriving forward, Kristaps Porzingis, and the All-Star guard, Jaylen Brown.

The Sixers missed a couple of key players as well, ruling out Nic Batum and Kelly Oubre for the matchup. However, there were no scheduled losses on Wednesday night. Philly fought for a win and, unfortunately, did not receive the results they wanted.

“I thought, from the game in general, I thought the physicality on the ball, it didn’t seem like we were being able to get in some of our stuff as easily as we would like to or getting it run as crisply as we would like to,” Sixers head coach Nick Nurse explained.

Wednesday’s game had a similar theme to Tuesday’s, where the opponent played a physical game and made it difficult for the Sixers to find their rhythm, especially early on. Despite the Sixers garnering a lead before halftime, they trailed by as many as 17 points in the second quarter.

A slow start for the second straight night resulted in another game of playing catch-up. Considering the Sixers were on the second leg of the back-to-back, there was a chance they could run low on gas in the second half.

“It’s not always easy coming off a back-to-back,” Nurse added. “Took us a minute to get into the game a little bit. I think that we were, again, just giving up a little bit too much easy offense and dug ourselves a hole.”

The Sixers have proven this season they have a lot of fight in them, and no lead is safe for the opposition. But when you’re playing a team as sharp as the Celtics, shorthanded or not, it’s difficult to bank on them making late-game mistakes to allow for an opportunity to form a comeback.

“Some guys came in and gave us a spark and fought back,” Nurse finished. “I thought it looked like we got back into the game and just kind of hit a sequence of plays where we took it in traffic and didn’t come away with a basket, and they would get a breakout or an and-one or a three at the other end and kind of reopened up the game.”

Despite 11 lead changes throughout the first three quarters, the Celtics locked in their lead going into the fourth. Entering the final quarter up by eight, the Celtics then outscored the Sixers 34-32, issuing the Sixers a ten-point loss. With that, the Sixers dropped to 8-3 on the year, allowing the Celtics to move back into the top slot in the Eastern Conference.