Inside the Sixers: Buddy Hield’s Sacramento boos, Kyle Lowry’s quest for No. 7, and more from out west

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Buddy Hield heard Kings fans express their distaste for him Monday night. But the former Sacramento guard insisted the boos whenever he touched the ball for the 76ers were “just all fun. It’s really not that serious to me.”

The persistent reaction likely still stemmed from a hot-mic moment in December 2022, which caught Hield making a vulgar comment about Sacramento while he was with the Indiana Pacers. And by the end of Monday night, Hield had gone 0-for-6 from three-point range — then went to the locker room to receive X-rays, which came back negative, on an ankle he said had been bothering him in recent days, and “just got weak on me” when he planted for a step-back attempt.

“I never want to sub myself out of the game, as long as I’ve been in the NBA,” Hield said, just before checking a cell phone flooded with messages asking about his health. “… In that situation, I just felt like, how the game was going, I said, ‘I need to check this.’ ”

Monday also was an unpleasant stay in Sacramento for Hield’s new team, as the Sixers capped a 1-3 West road trip with a 108-96 loss to the Kings.

» READ MORE: Tyrese Maxey can't do it alone in loss to Kings

After the game, coach Nick Nurse maintained that he is encouraged by the way the 39-33 Sixers are developing defensively. But they are still not consistently cashing in enough on offense, failing to reach 100 points for the ninth time in 18 games since the All-Star break. Now, only 10 regular-season games remain to gain some traction, though their optimism remains that Joel Embiid, the reigning NBA Most Valuable Player, will return sometime in April.

The one game on this road trip when the Sixers had an offensive breakthrough came in Sunday afternoon’s big win over the Los Angeles Clippers. The rematch quickly arrives Wednesday in James Harden’s first game back in Philly since the trade.

“We’ve just got to come with the same mindset: Attack and make plays and be aggressive on both ends,” Hield said. “Today, we were not aggressive on both ends. I think we made enough plays. We didn’t make enough shots. So we’ve got to figure out ways to generate great shots and put the ball in the hole.”

Here are some more nuggets from this road-heavy stretch for the Sixers:

Cameron Payne bounced his way into the Fiserv Forum locker room, dripping in sweat following his March 14 pregame warmup in Milwaukee.

“Bring the juice!” he said as he sat down to study the scouting report featuring his former teammates on the Bucks. “Man, it feel good to feel good.”

Payne, whom the Sixers acquired from the Bucks at the trade deadline, has been the epitome of a good vibes guy throughout his NBA career. And that pregame energy kick-started a nice scoring-punch stretch, which the Sixers have needed while combo guard De’Anthony Melton has been sidelined with a spine issue. Before Monday’s 3-for-10 clunker, Payne had reached double digits in four of his last six games, including a 23-point outburst Sunday against the Clippers.

Perhaps returning to familiar stomping grounds gave Payne an assist.

Payne was one of the last players on the floor during the Sixers’ March 13 practice at Marquette University, and responded to coaches asking, “Where your fire at?” by knocking down shot after shot. He was then the first player to arrive at shootaround in Phoenix last Wednesday, after traveling from the home he still has in the area from his time with the Suns from 2020-23. After that game, Payne and All-Star guard Devin Booker swapped jerseys.

» READ MORE: Keith Pompey: I was wrong: These Sixers miss James Harden

On Sunday, however, Payne was pleased that he put two halves together, with 10 points before the break and 13 after it. He credited teammate Tyrese Maxey, whom he regularly shared the floor with in a rotation tweak by Nurse, with encouraging him to keep the ball in his hands to initiate the offense

“Sometimes, when Tyrese is out there,” Payne said, “I be feeling like, ‘Let him have it. Let him go.’ But on the court, Tyrese is like, ‘Bro, take it. Let’s go.’ So that kind of confidence kind of gets me going.

“So now that I know, I’ll make sure I just stay aggressive.”

Minutes after Wednesday’s loss in Phoenix, Paul Reed went to X (formerly Twitter) with a blunt self-assessment.

“I played like [expletive]” he posted, with a face palm emoji.

Reed told The Inquirer a few minutes later that he believed it was important to acknowledge his offensive inefficiency, when he went 2-of-9 against the Suns two nights after missing four of his five shot attempts against the Miami Heat. That night, he vowed to refocus on defense and “keeping it simple” on offense, trusting that the approach meant “points are going to just fall in my lap — easy points.”

“Screening and rolling, getting in the dunker [spot under the basket], staying spaced,” Reed said of what that foundational approach entails. “And, when I get the ball, being aggressive, but at the same time, being patient and not forcing nothing.”

» READ MORE: Mike Sielski: The Sixers and Comcast Spectacor should start the conversation to bring a single sports hall of fame and museum to Philly

Four days later, some befuddled Sixers teammates on the bench looked up into the Crypto.com Arena stands. A large group of fans near the top of the first concourse was chanting “BBall Paul!” near the end of an ideal Reed stat line against the Clippers: 10 points on 4-for-6 shooting, eight rebounds, three assists, three steals and two blocks.

“It’s an amazing feeling to know you got fans traveling to come see you play,” Reed said. “And they just want the best for me. It definitely helps.”

No. 7 is special to Kyle Lowry.

The digits in the date of his birthday — 25 — add up to seven. His birth year, ‘86, adds up to 14, which, when divided by two … well, you know. His childhood home address had a seven in it.

And, of course, “my career started to blossom a little bit when I got No. 7,” Lowry said, referencing when he was traded to the Houston Rockets in 2009.

“Now it just works,” Lowry said. “It’s been my number for a long time now.”

But when Lowry joined the Sixers off the buyout market last month, center Mo Bamba had already been wearing it for nearly five months. Once Bamba got word that Lowry “really wanted 7,” however, he was happy to make a switch — on one condition.

Bamba asked Lowry to make a donation to a foundation in Africa, where his family has roots.

“Regardless of the number change or not,” Bamba said, “I think he’s a guy who would have probably done that. It just speaks to his character, and it’s good to have him here.”

Added Lowry: “It was true respect from him. And what he asked me to do, I was like, ‘Oh, hell yeah.’ ”

After that, Bamba narrowed his replacement number choices down to 11 and 5. He went with 5, the number he wore when he began his NBA career with the Orlando Magic. He is now introduced in the starting lineup as “Mo Bamba, number 5,” a play on the Lou Bega hit song, “Mambo No. 5,″ that describes a little bit of Monica in my life, and a little bit of Erica by my side.

“I don’t mind it,” Bamba said.

KJ Martin bobbed his head, the new Future album filling his earphones.

That’s not the only reason the reserve wing was in a good mood ahead of Friday’s game at the Lakers. He was back in Los Angeles, his hometown where his family still lives. Though Martin played only three minutes against the Lakers, he totaled eight points on 4-for-6 shooting and a season-high-tying four assists against the Clippers, briefly his former team before the Sixers acquired him in the Harden blockbuster deal.

Martin’s go-to spot on basketball trips to Los Angeles is Alfred Coffee, though he gushed that the shop at the Sixers’ team hotel made the “best iced latte I’ve ever had.”

But what is Martin’s take on In-N-Out, a topic that can create intense debates among teammates hailing from different parts of the country? Maxey, for instance, is a staunch Whataburger defender because of his Dallas-area roots.

“Tough for me, because I grew up eating it so much,” Martin said. “… I understand people who are from out of town that don’t have In-N-Out think that [they need to go]. I’d rather go to Five Guys or Shake Shack.

“I love the Animal Fries, though.”

Before the pandemic, the visiting team’s pregame and postgame news conferences typically took place in a scrum outside the locker room. Now they are held in auxiliary rooms, which can drastically vary in size and space.

For some reason, the location for the Sixers’ sessions changed from Friday’s game against the Lakers to Sunday’s matchup against the Clippers, despite both contests occurring inside the same building and with the same locker room.

On Sunday, the door to the much smaller room was essentially next to the table where Nurse fielded questions. So when Tom McGinnis, the Sixers’ longtime radio voice, was about three minutes late to the pregame meeting with the media, Nurse noticed it out of the corner of his eye.

“You can let Tom in,” Nurse quipped. “Come on in, but that’s a fine.”

Nurse then introduced McGinnis to the mostly local media on hand, who responded with a “Tooooom!” like they were in an episode of Cheers.

A bright spot of Monday’s loss was the play of newcomer D.J. Wilson, who finished with 10 points, two rebounds, two assists, and two blocks in 14 minutes. That performance came less than 48 hours after he signed a 10-day contract with the Sixers, following an impressive G League season.

Helping Wilson quickly acclimate was his familiarity with Nurse, after playing four games with the Toronto Raptors in 2021-22. The 28-year-old’s initial days have been filled with film study and on-court work. Yet once he got through his first couple of possessions Monday, “it’s just basketball at that point.”

“You just kind of gain everybody’s trust by just playing hard, playing defense first, and then kind of letting the game evolve from there,” Wilson said after the game. “I know what I’m capable of. It’s just a matter of not forcing anything and letting the game come to me, especially on the offensive end. Doing the things I can control: my effort, defense, rebounding.”

Wilson averaged 19.4 points, 9.5 rebounds, 4.8 assists, and 1.5 blocks this season with the Osceola Magic, and was pleased with the consistency he established across all areas including decision-making to shooting.