Sixers-Bulls takeaways: Sleepwalking against Chicago; missing Marcus Morris; doomed by Nico Batum’s injury
The Sixers could have used Marcus Morris’s three-point shooting, and they missed Nicolas Batum down the stretch.
The 76ers aren’t good enough to sleepwalk against a serviceable opponent.
They could have used Marcus Morris’s three-point shooting. And not having Nico Batum down the stretch doomed them.
Those three things stood out in the Sixers’ 108-104 loss to the Chicago Bulls at the Wells Fargo Center.
Not good enough to half-step
Kelly Oubre Jr. said Monday morning that the Sixers were more locked-in over the last week, carrying out the game plan from shootaround to games.
Well, that was easy to do against the Detroit Pistons, Washington Wizards and Charlotte Hornets, the worst three teams in the Eastern Conference. The Bulls (11-17) are the conference’s fourth-worst team. But they have more than their record would indicate with All-Stars DeMar DeRozan and Nikola Vučević, an emerging young guard in Coby White and a solid bench.
The Sixers jumped to an early 12-point lead before falling into a deep slumber, leading to a 12-point deficit.
They battled back to take a two-point lead with 6 minutes, 19 seconds remaining. Joel Embiid missed a shot that would have knotted the score with 6.6 seconds left. But it should not have come to that.
“First and foremost, we can’t dig ourselves in a hole,” Tyrese Maxey said.
The Sixers dug themselves in a big hole in the second quarter, trailing by 11 points.
“I thought we had a strength there in the second when we didn’t run good offense,” coach Nick Nurse said. “We took some quick shots. ... It was too much lack of execution on those things.
“I think that taking [a] out of rhythm shot is probably not going to produce a lot of stuff.”
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Missing Morris
The Sixers didn’t get any three-point production from their bench.
Danuel House Jr. made his lone three-pointer. But Oubre went 1-for-5. Patrick Beverley finished 0-for-2, and Robert Covington missed his lone attempt. It was obvious that the Sixers missed Morris’ three-point shooting.
Morris, who is shooting 54.3% on three-pointers, missed the game because of an illness.
Batum’s absence glaring
The Sixers struggled down the stretch without Batum on the floor.
The small forward exited late in the third quarter and didn’t return because of right hamstring tightness.
With Batum out, Oubre played the entire fourth quarter. He scored all six of his points in the fourth on 2-for-4 shooting. But he wasn’t impactful, forced a lot of shots and struggled mightily on the defensive end.
Oubre had his worst performances of the season, shooting 2-for-10.