{"id":703197,"date":"2026-04-07T11:52:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T11:52:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/703197\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T11:52:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T11:52:12","slug":"nick-nurse-sixers-react-to-second-half-struggles-in-loss-to-spurs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/703197\/","title":{"rendered":"Nick Nurse, Sixers react to second half struggles in loss to Spurs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>April 7, 2026, 7:02 a.m. ET<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">The Philadelphia 76ers had a golden opportunity in front of them on Monday night in San Antonio. The Spurs lost star big man Victor Wembanyama to a rib contusion at halftime as he no longer stood in their way. The Sixers had a big chance to steal a win on the road and start the 3-game trip on a high note.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Instead, <a href=\"http:\/\/sixerswire.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nba\/sixers\/2026\/04\/06\/player-grades-joel-embiid-76ers-come-up-short-to-spurs-to-begin-trip\/89493239007\/\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the Sixers fell 115-102<\/a> as they dropped into the play-in tournament in the East. Philadelphia gave up 53 points in the second half, 11 in transition, and the Spurs were able to walk away with the win despite losing Wembanyama.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">&#8220;Yeah, most of the most of the bad moments of the game came off transition.&#8221; coach Nick Nurse told reporters after the loss. &#8220;Either a missed shot or a turnover that just\u2014I think they got most of their really good stuff in transition. I thought we did a really good job for the most part, half court defensively. A lot of guys that put their head down and kind of play physical driving, and our guys stood in there pretty well, but again, I think we came out and scored some buckets, got our defense set, and I think we turned one over, and then missed back to back 3s, and they just scored in transition on all of them.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Nurse and the Sixers were in good position in the third quarter as Philadelphia had a chance to cut the deficit to two heading into the fourth. Dominick Barlow had a great opportunity as he cut into the paint, but he missed the dunk, which then turned into a Dylan Harper 3-pointer and a 7-point Spurs lead heading into the fourth. San Antonio never looked back after that.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">&#8220;We fought back and had a chance to, I think, cut it to two,&#8221; Nurse added. &#8220;Barlow had a great play, just missed the dunk, you know, unfortunately. It would have cut it to two, and then off that rebound, they came down here to three. So it went from a possible two to eight. So, we\u2019re kind of hanging in there, but just chasing them a little bit the whole time.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Need a news break? <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-t-l=\":body nav (play)|e|auto spike click:5|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_sp_a\" href=\"https:\/\/play.usatoday.com\/?itm_source=SPIKE&amp;itm_campaign=PLAYSPIKE&amp;itm_medium=ONSITE\">Check out the all new PLAY hub with puzzles, games and more!<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Barlow, making a return to San Antonio where he started his NBA career, took the brunt of the blame for the loss.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">&#8220;I&#8217;ll be honest, the missed dunk I had at the end of the third, I think, killed momentum,&#8221; said a somber Barlow. &#8220;So, I&#8217;ll take that. If you wanna blame, you can put it on me.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">The Sixers will remain in Texas as they prepare for the Houston Rockets on Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"April 7, 2026, 7:02 a.m. ET The Philadelphia 76ers had a golden opportunity in front of them on&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":703198,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3769],"tags":[679,72400,7,6,678,207,3817,72473,72474,72404,72840,72897,72445,72954,72406,72751,1928,72403],"class_list":{"0":"post-703197","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia-76ers","8":"tag-76ers","9":"tag-accessfree","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-nba","12":"tag-philadelphia","13":"tag-philadelphia-76ers","14":"tag-philadelphia76ers","15":"tag-sstssportsnbasixers","16":"tag-sstsnsixers","17":"tag-tagbasketball","18":"tag-tagdominick-barlow","19":"tag-tagnick-nurse","20":"tag-tagoverall-neutral","21":"tag-tagsan-antonio","22":"tag-tagsports-news","23":"tag-tagvictor-wembanyama","24":"tag-tx","25":"tag-typestory"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116363286765436702","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=703197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703197\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/703198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=703197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=703197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=703197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}