The Sixers’ first preseason game of the 2023-24 season at Wells Fargo Center was relatively memorable.
The Sixers suffered a 112-101 exhibition loss on Wednesday night, dropping to 0-2 in the preseason as Bryce Harper led the Phillies to victory in the NLDS behind a fireworks display.
The Sixers’ leading scorers were Kelly Oubre Jr. (18 points) and Tyrese Maxey (17 points). Celtics guard Peyton Pritchard scored a team-high 17 points.
The Sixers are without James Harden, Joel Embiid, Furkan Korkmaz and Danuel House Jr. Boston’s Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum also sat.
The third of the Sixers’ four preseason contests will be Monday night against the Nets in Brooklyn. Sixers head coach Nick Nurse said before the game that it was a reasonable expectation that the team would have all its players available for the game, but joked, “We’re not going to spend any money on that.”
Here are our thoughts on Wednesday’s loss to the Sixers.
Lead recalibration
Just like in the Sixers’ preseason opener Sunday at TD Garden, Paul Reed missed a 3-point shot with his first touch.
Moments later, Reed pondered an open jumper and passed it. He failed to score inside Kristaps Porzingis during those plays.
While Reid’s instincts often serve him well on defense, he still doesn’t always make natural, smooth decisions on offense under Nurse. One of the challenges, as Reid pointed out after the Sixers’ practice on Tuesday, is that he’s not used to having the go-ahead behind the arc.
“The most important thing is to be open, don’t hesitate, just be free,” Reid said. “And I understand where my shot is coming from and when it’s available. That’s kind of new to me. Last season, if I was taking threes, maybe 10 games or so. He couldn’t have played. He wants him to hit the ball more this year.
“I’m still adjusting. It’s just a matter of understanding where my shots are going to be in the offense and getting used to it.”
Reed came alive in the third quarter, playing a smarter, more decisive style overall on offense. He even threw an alley-oop dish to Oubre.
On the night, Reed had 10 points on 5-of-9 shooting, seven rebounds, five assists, and two steals.
green still has something
Danny Green’s first action on the court was about as promising as it could be.
He hit a 3-pointer seconds after checking into the game and made it. On defense, Green quickly picked off a pass and made a coast-to-coast layup.
Since his first stint as a Sixer, Green has likely dropped a bit in the rankings of the fastest players on the roster. The 36-year-old moves as you would expect after returning from a serious knee injury. Still, Green on Wednesday looked like a player who will continue to belong in the NBA. Through the final 3:50 of the first quarter, he had eight points on 3-of-3 shooting, two steals, one assist and one rebound. One of them was a step-back three with the shot clock dwindling.
No one would mistake Green for speed, but his presence Wednesday didn’t hurt the Sixers’ transition offense. Green is quick to fire off jumpers and has developed a sense of where to position himself on the floor. He also threw a long, diagonal pass to assist Oubre’s three points.
Oubre’s scoring ability (and efficiency) was also a plus. He gave the Sixers 16 points in the first half on 5-of-5 shooting. Compared to the Sixers’ preseason opener, Oubre seemed to have a sharper sense of which lanes to fill in transition and how to attack early in the shot clock. If his jumper numbers drop at a reasonable rate and he plays focused, aggressive defense, Oubre will likely see significant playing time this season.
defensive work to be done
The Sixers’ team defense in the first half was not good. The Celtics scored 67 points before intermission and shot 56.1 percent from the floor in the first half. The Sixers had some great spurts of scrambling around the floor and deflecting passes to make Boston uncomfortable, but they didn’t have consistent success.
Of course, some misconceptions should be quickly cleared up. Maxey and De’Anthony Melton, who was making his preseason debut, discussed things during one stop. (True to form, Melton had two blocks and one steal in 21 minutes.)
The Sixers should eventually find a better overall balance between aggressive and overactive defense. Nurse said before the game that he thought the Sixers committed too many fouls in the first game, but Maxey struggled in that regard Wednesday. The 22-year-old came off the bench late in the second quarter with four fouls. Melton also scored four points in the game.
In the third quarter, the Sixers had a brilliant defensive moment when Melton and Oubre trapped Peyton Pritchard in the backcourt following a Celtics timeout, forcing another Boston timeout with 17 seconds left on the shot clock. Eventually, Tobias Harris intercepted a long, desperate inbounds pass. Once the regular season begins, expect Nurse to create more coverage along these lines when the Sixers want to change the flow of games.
Jaden Springer didn’t do much for the Sixers this time around, but he once again showed off his offensive progress over the past year with a 10-point night. Springer has made 4-of-5 3-pointers this preseason.