Opening-night loss to Celtics serves as reminder that Sixers are still a work in progress

BOSTON — As Joel Embiid and P.J. Tucker lingered inside TD Garden’s visitors locker room, the sage veteran relayed a message of “you’ve got to learn” to the MVP contender.

Tucker’s statement was not designed solely for Embiid, but to describe this early stage of the 76ers’ season. It certainly applied in the aftermath of their 126-117 loss at the Celtics on opening night. A Boston team fresh off an NBA Finals berth pulled away in the second half. A Sixers team trying to catch the Celtics in the title-contender pecking order was choppy-to-poor on both ends of the floor.

The contrast served as a reminder that, despite their well-reviewed offseason, this version of the Sixers (0-1) is still a work in progress.

» READ MORE: Sixers fall 126-117 to Celtics after sluggish showing in NBA season opener

“Nobody wins a championship the first game of the season, let’s be real,” said Tucker, who was a critical role player on the Milwaukee Bucks team that won the 2021 NBA title. “We’ve got a new team. We’re still learning. We’re still figuring out.

“There’s too many games to worry about one game, the first one.”

Tuesday arrived with the hubbub of playing in the NBA’s first game of the regular season, on the road, against an elite opponent — with the addition of a touching pregame Bill Russell tribute. Though the Celtics have navigated their own uncertainty following the abrupt yearlong suspension of coach Ime Udoka and a knee injury to interior defensive force Robert Williams III, they still return their talented core anchored by the wing tandem of Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, who scored 35 points apiece Tuesday.

The Sixers, meanwhile, implemented Tucker as a starting forward and De’Anthony Melton, Danuel House Jr., and Montrezl Harrell as the first three players off the bench Tuesday. Coach Doc Rivers stressed that those substitution patterns remain fluid, meaning we could see new combinations as soon as Thursday’s home opener against the Bucks.

“You can’t teach the togetherness and all that,” Rivers said. “You just can’t, and people don’t get that ... to get [to the Finals], all the things you have to go through and you learn getting there, [the Celtics] bring back this year. We don’t have that.”

Yet the Sixers’ longest-tenured player, Embiid, took the blame for the loss. Despite finishing with 26 points, 15 rebounds, and 5 assists, the All-NBA center was in early foul trouble and committed six turnovers he described as “careless.” One miscue occurred while the Sixers were still within striking distance early in the fourth quarter, when Brown swiped Embiid’s lazy pass and took it the other way for the easy finish to put the Celtics up by 11 points.

“Honestly, all of them came from me,” Embiid said of his team’s 14 turnovers that Boston converted into 22 points. “... I don’t think I was really in the game. Some of the passes and turnovers were just bad, so it’s on me. I’ll be better.”

When asked why he was not “really in the game,” Embiid recycled a joke that he was “chillin’ in bed all summer.”

Embiid and Rivers said the Sixers’ troubles, though, began with their defense that entered the season with high expectations but, as Embiid said, “didn’t get any stops all night.” Tucker, Melton, and House were supposed to add versatility, athleticism, and toughness on that end of the floor to slow down potent wings such as Brown and Tatum. But Rivers lamented the number of times his team got beaten off the dribble, which created a slew of other problems.

“That breaks you down,” Rivers said. “And then the next guy helps and that leads to a shot.”

Despite shooting 50% from the floor and scoring 117 points, Rivers, Embiid, and Tucker all described the Sixers’ offense as subpar.

They missed open shots. They did not attack in transition — the Celtics’ 24-2 advantage in fast-break points made Embiid’s eyes widen while scouring the box score — and did not screen enough to get teammates open, Tucker said. Rivers called multiple frustrated timeouts during the third quarter because, after his team generated an open shot on its first possession after halftime, “we didn’t get back into the play that just worked” on four consecutive trips, Rivers said, “and no one saw that.”

When asked if the Sixers should move past Tuesday’s performance by mentally flushing it, Tucker reinforced that “I don’t want them to forget about it. I want them to learn from it.” That involves each player looking within himself to determine how he can improve, Tucker said, and by maintaining constant communication with teammates. Tucker then grinned when asked about an animated on-court conversation with third-year guard Tyrese Maxey late in the first half about a botched defensive coverage.

“That’s the part I love about right now,” Tucker said. “... We’re going to have growing pains. Win some, lose some. But in the end, it’s about getting better, building up to be a team standing at the end of the season.”

Harrell, however, expressed an even greater sense of urgency, with the Bucks up next.

“We’re going to figure it out and go back to the drawing board and start applying the things we did all preseason and win games when they count,” Harrell said, “or we’re going to continue to go out and have close games and get our [butt] beat in the end.”