DETROIT — The Philadelphia 76ers held a 12-point lead over the short-handed Detroit Pistons in the third quarter after rallying from a 9-point halftime deficit. It felt as if the Sixers were going to cruise to the win, especially, when considering how much Detroit was missing on Friday.
However, the Pistons dug deep and used a lot of physicality in order to rally and beat the Sixers 114-105. Sure, Philadelphia was missing Joel Embiid and Paul George, but the Pistons were missing Cade Cunningham, Jalen Duren, Tobias Harris, Ausar Thompson, and Jaden Ivey. Detroit was relying on two-way guard Daniss Jenkins and second-round rookie Chaz Lanier to make an impact and the Sixers were unable to close that game out.
The Pistons played a physical brand of basketball and it bothered and wore the Sixers down. There are lessons to be learned for Philadelphia.
“You gotta be physical back,” Tyrese Maxey said. “You gotta be extremely physical. You gotta execute. You gotta be mentally tougher than them. I don’t think we were mentally tougher than them. I think early on, we did a good job, but once they went on a couple runs, you gotta stay with it. You gotta stay mentally tough.”
Pistons big man Isaiah Stewart, who leads that physical tone that Detroit wants to set, claimed that the Sixers “laid down” for them as he said in his walk-off interview with FanDuel Sports Net Detroit. Sixers rookie VJ Edgecombe replied, “I got no comment on that. Everybody’s gonna have their opinions. I have no comment on that.” when asked about the comment, but he added that the Sixers have to fight back in terms of their own physicality.
“We have to play through it,” Edgecombe. “It’s a grown man sport. Expect to get hit. They’re known for being physical. They have the resume and history of being physical. I understand they’re trying to carry that on, but at the end of the day, physical games—refs are letting us play. Just expect physical games.”
The Sixers have work to do, but the good thing for them is they are still 7-5 and there are 70 games to figure everything out. With that being said, they cannot have the amount of lows they have had to begin the season. They have had stretches of brilliance, but also stretches of bad play that have cost them in their five losses.
“It’s a 48-minute game,” Maxey finished. “The games that we lost this year is because we had them lows. You can’t have those lows. We’ve been really, really good sometimes, but then those lows make us look really bad.”
The Sixers will face the Los Angeles Clippers on Monday back at home.