The Philadelphia 76ers had a rough night in Tampa on Sunday when they fell on the Toronto Raptors 110-103 one night when they just couldn’t buy a bucket. They shot only 38.3% off the floor and then 11-for-37 deep in the loss.
Superstar big man Joel Embiid felt the pressure from the Raptors all night, as he finished with 25 points, but only shot 6-for-20 on the night. It was a night where he looked good, but they just wouldn’t let themselves go.
“I just missed photos that I normally take,” said a gloomy Embiid. “As soon as I cross half the track, they send me two or three men and all night I made the right game. I split the ball, I passed it to my teammates. We could have taken more pictures, many pictures were in and out. There are a lot of photos I took all season that I just missed. So we just have to do better. “
After scoring a career-high 50 points in their win over the Chicago Bulls on Friday, the big guy just couldn’t buy a bucket. It was really one of those nights and he even said that to coach Doc Rivers.
“I thought in the third quarter, as he said when he walked out, ‘man, I looked good tonight, the ball just wouldn’t go in’ and there are nights like that,” Rivers said. “I thought a lot of our boys looked great tonight. The problem is they didn’t go in and I thought the misses were starting to add up as far as we handled them so we had to better deal with misses because that’s going to happen and again. “
It wasn’t just Embiid. The Sixers got a lot of good looks from guys who normally take shots, like Tobias Harris, for example. He shot only 6-for-17 on the night and only hit 1-for-9 from deep. The ball moved on the attacking end and Embiid made the correct plays from the doubles teams, only the shots didn’t fall.
“Yes, unfortunately,” said Harris. “To us we looked really good and we have to give them credit, they were able to watch a lot so we went half way instead of running out. We had good photos to take, they just didn’t fall for us tonight. “
Ben Simmons returned to the line-up and had offensive success scoring 28 points in 9-for-11 shots, but even he acknowledged it could have been better offensively.
“I think we all have a lot of great looks at offense that just didn’t fall,” he explained. “If they fall, it would have been a completely different game, but that’s how the game works.”
Basketball is a game of make or miss and on Sundays they just missed shots. They now have to go to Tuesday’s rematch with the Raptors.
This post originally appeared on Sixers WireFollow us on Facebook