Sixers lose, 120-111, in Phoenix as Devin Booker, bench give Suns edge in win

PHOENIX — The 76ers have a depth problem.

It surfaced Thursday in Portland, but was flat out exposed during Saturday’s 120-111 loss to the Phoenix Suns.

The Sixers lose a lot when the majority of their starters aren’t on the floor, especially now with sixth man Shake Milton sidelined.

That’s not a good sign heading into Monday’s game against the Utah Jazz, the fourth and final tilt of the Sixers’ West Coast road trip. Doc Rivers said Milton will miss that game, his third straight, with a sprained left ankle. The coach said he didn’t have a time frame for the guard’s return.

The Sixers (18-9) sure could have used him on Saturday in front of 1,652 fans at the Phoenix Suns Arena.

On this afternoon, their lack of depth combined with defensive shortcomings made their second consecutive loss inevitable.

“It’s a long season,” Rivers said of his bench. “I don’t ever overreact to a couple of games. But you still have to do better, offensively. And that will help your defense a little bit.

“But if you are going to be bad, offensively, you got to be great defensively. Right now, that group has been bad on both. So that’s something we have to address.”

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The Suns (16-9) shot 60.8% from the field with All-Star shooting guard Devin Booker scoring a game-high 36 points. It marked the third straight game the Sixers surrendered at least 30 points to an opposing guard. Sacramento Kings standout De’Aaron Fox scored 30 points on Tuesday. Portland Trail Blazers perennial All-Star Damian Lillard also had 30 points on Thursday.

And just like on Thursday, the Sixers’ bench play didn’t help matters.

Joel Embiid finished with 35 points, eight rebounds, and two assists for the Sixers. Ben Simmons added 18 points, six rebounds, and four assists. Sixteen of Simmons’ points came in the first half. Tobias Harris had 18 points. Philly’s other two starters, Danny Green and Seth Curry, had 10 points apiece.

However, the Sixers were outscored 49-20 in bench points. Even that was a bit misleading. With the game out of reach, Rivers had all of his starters out for the final 1 minute, 50 seconds. During that time, the Sixers reserves scored seven points.

Leading by five points, the Sixers opened the second quarter with an all-reserve lineup of Tyrese Maxey, Mike Scott, Matisse Thybulle, Furkan Korkmaz, and Dwight Howard. Thybulle scored the first points of the quarter on a driving layup to extend the lead to seven.

However, the Sixers missed five of their next six shots and committed a turnover before Simmons and Embiid were subbed back in with 7:46 left in the half. Their cushion had totally evaporated by the time Green, Curry, and Harris rejoined Simmons and Embiid on the court 1:12 later. The Sixers lost a lot of momentum at that point.

“Yeah,” Rivers said. “I don’t know what you want me to say, but that’s a fact. Even when we changed the rotation, it’s still bottom-line we have to do better.

“The bench hasn’t been bad this year, and they’ve been bad lately, probably going back about five games, in my opinion.”

Down five points, the Sixers opened the fourth quarter with a lineup of Embiid, Thybulle, Korkmaz, Scott, and Maxey.

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After former Sixer Dario Saric stripped Korkmaz, Jae Crowder buried a three-pointer to put the Suns up, 89-81, 44 seconds into the the fourth quarter. Curry replaced Maxey as the backup point guard 11 seconds later. But he turned the ball over on an offensive foul.

Saric’s three-pointer with 10:42 left gave the Suns an 11-point cushion, leading to a Rivers timeout. The coach put his entire starting lineup back into game with 7:55 left, and the team down nine. But at that point, the Sixers had basically lost the momentum.

Early on, the Sixers did a solid job on Booker.

He missed three of his first four shots en route to scoring four points on 2-for-7 shooting. One of his shots -- a 15-foot floater -- was blocked by Green.

However, he found his groove in the second quarter, scoring eight points on 4-for-4 shooting. His stellar play continued into the third quarter, tallying 12 more points on 6-for-8 shooting before adding eight points in the fourth.

“The coverage, I feel like, was good at the start of the game,” Simmons said. “We had some blitzes going on that led to turnovers in transition. .... In the second half, we didn’t get too many deflections, too many stops.”

The Suns shot 69.4% in the second half compared to 66.7% to the Sixers. Philly actually shot 52.1% from the field, including 41.2% on three-pointers, for the game.

The difference was their backup unit.

Kurkmaz (0-for-5, two points), Thybulle (2-for-3, five points), Howard (0-for-2, two points), Maxey (2-for-6, six points), and Scott (zero attempts, 0 points) combined to shoot 4-for-16. Meanwhile, Kurkmaz (minus-13), Thybulle (minus-15), and Howard (minus-12) were a combined minus-37 with no one playing more than Kormaz’s 15:39.

This was Scott’s first game back after missing the previous 13 games with right knee swelling.

Chris Paul had 18 points and 10 assists as the Suns extended their winning streak to five games. Saric and E’Twaun Moore added 15 and 11 points, respectively, off the bench.

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