The Philadelphia 76ers got blasted last night in Cleveland, losing 122-105. Shawn Long was hilariously good again, scoring 16 points on 7-10 shooting in just 21 minutes, but it was a very weird game where our centers shot 5-6 from three -- including Tiago Splitter's first-ever career three-pointer, always history with this guy -- and the rest of the team went 6-27 from deep, while our 17 turnovers led to a whole bunch of Cleveland run-outs. We were beaten soundly by an obviously better team. No big headline there.
The problem is that we're running out of players to stay competitive with. Robert Covington was ruled out for the rest of the season with another meniscus tear -- must just be a seasonal thing for the Sixers -- and Jahlil Okafor was officially ruled out for the rest of the season with knee soreness, though how detrimental that part actually is to the Sixers' winning potential is arguable. But the Sixers only have nine active players at this point, three of them are rookies, and one of them is Splitter. Not like the Sixers resembled an All-Star team at any point this season, but this is definitely us at our most Summer League right now.
Is this finally the end of the winning, then? Do we just kinda play out the string from here and let the L's (maybe) carry us to lottery glory? Maybe, though the Sixers have home games still left against the Knicks, Bulls and Nets, and it's gonna be tough for them to lose all three of those. 30 wins is definitely still in sight. At least while the Sixers got creamed last night, the Kings lost by even more to New Orleans and their old budy DeMarcus Cousins, and the Knicks actually won in Miami without Carmelo Anthony and Derrick Rose. The tank, as always, soldiers on.