Shorthanded Sixers’ rally comes up short in 112-109 loss to Minnesota Timberwolves

As Doc Rivers met the media less than two hours before Saturday’s tip-off against the Minnesota Timberwolves, he continuously repeated that the 76ers will figure out how to win without starting guards Tyrese Maxey and James Harden.

Those solutions will take more than one game to concoct, as the Sixers’ chaotic rally attempt with a patchwork rotation came up short in a 112-109 defeat at the Wells Fargo Center.

“We’re a resilient team,” said reserve forward Georges Niang, who scored 15 points off the bench but missed the potential game-tying three-pointer right before the buzzer. “ ... The fight and grit that this team has shown, I’m not one for moral victories at all and I’m not going to say it’s a moral victory, but it’s encouraging moving on.

“We know what we’re capable of, we stuck together as a unit, and we almost pulled this one out.”

The Sixers (8-8) trailed by as many as 20 points in the first half — and 13 entering the final frame — of a game they also played without starting forward Tobias Harris (hip soreness), a capable scorer, and Furkan Korkmaz (knee swelling), who can provide emergency ballhandling.

But they roared back in the fourth, outscoring the Timberwolves 25-15 before whiffing on an opportunity to take the lead with less than a minute to play.

After a three-pointer by De’Anthony Melton (19 points, six assists, five rebounds, five steals) cut the deficit to 110-109 with 29.1 seconds remaining, he also snatched the ball away from the Timberwolves’ Anthony Edwards but could not finish the transition layup with 9.8 seconds to go. Edwards followed with two free throws with 4.1 seconds to play, before Niang’s final off-balance shot attempt.

Rivers believed Edwards pushed Melton as he went up for the shot, though Melton said his misfire was “unacceptable, but I’ll live and figure out how to next time, in that position, just make it.”

The Sixers looked like a team with a depleted backcourt and funky lineup combinations out of necessity, lacking offensive execution and committing 22 turnovers (including eight in the fourth quarter) that the Timberwolves converted into 18 points. Though All-NBA center Joel Embiid finished with 32 points (including 18-of-20 from the free-throw line), nine rebounds, and six assists and Shake Milton added a season-high 27 points and six rebounds in his first start of 2022-23, the Sixers’ first-half hole was too big and their mistakes in crunch time too costly.

“We should have won the game,” Embiid said. “We weren’t focused for three quarters. We gave them a huge lead. It was a little too much to overcome at the end.”

Minnesota got 25 points, five rebounds, and five assists from Edwards, along with 19 points and seven assists from De’Angelo Russell and 37 bench points.

Next up for the Sixers is a game against the Brooklyn Nets that was highly anticipated but has lost some luster with this rash of injuries. It is, however, expected to be Ben Simmons’ first time playing in Philly since his holdout and eventual trade last season.

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The Sixers’ defense had been tremendous since Embiid returned from illness. But Saturday’s first-half performance was ugly. They allowed 63 points on 52% shooting before the break, including 34 points in the paint thanks to a heavy dose of dribble penetration.

And when they had surrendered 83 points by the midpoint of the third period, Rivers flipped to a zone scheme.

It keyed the Sixers’ rally. Minnesota scored 29 points the rest of the way, and shot just 4-of-18 from the floor with six turnovers in the fourth quarter.

“I don’t think they knew that we were in zone,” Niang said. “That was the thing. It was almost like they had a circuit failure while we were in zone. They didn’t know what they were doing. We were forcing them to take bad shots.”

With so many injuries, Rivers said he will continue to “keep throwing things out there and seeing what works for us.” Embiid, however, hopes the Sixers don’t need to make such drastic defensive shifts moving forward.

“Playing zone to me is lazy,” he said. “We should do a better job guarding our own man.”

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A bad health situation nearly turned worse for the Sixers. Embiid hit the deck hard in the fourth quarter after tripping over Niang, who had fallen to the floor after committing an offensive foul while trying to take the ball to the basket.

Several Sixers, including Rivers, came over to check on Embiid, who remained in the game. But more than an hour after its conclusion, Embiid said he still felt pain in his left foot/ankle.

“Hopefully, somehow, it feels better,” Embiid said. “But we’ll see.”

Additionally, forward P.J. Tucker did not start the second half because he was being examined in the locker room for an undisclosed injury, Rivers said. Wing Matisse Thybulle, meanwhile, was limited to five first-half minutes while trying to play through a tweaked ankle.

“I was drawing up the play [out of the half], and I noticed Tuck wasn’t in the huddle,” Rivers said of Tucker.

Rivers on Thybulle: “I watched him moving in the first half. I made the decision, when I took him out, that was the last he was playing in that game. Because it does no good for him. [It] just extends the injury longer. We need bodies, and my thought was why use him now and then we lose that body?”