The Sixers are 40-25, third in the Eastern Conference, and 5-1 when James Harden plays.
By the standards of a team that meets the above description, few of the Sixers' losses have been easily palatable.
Thursday night’s 129-100 defeat to the Nets at Wells Fargo Center was a bad one. No member of the team or anyone invested in its performance wanted to watch former Sixers Ben Simmons, Seth Curry and Andre Drummond enjoy the final few minutes of Brooklyn’s win from the bench.
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Harden went 3 for 17 from the floor and looked largely out of answers when officials didn’t reward his attempts to create contact and draw foul shots.
“Just missed shots,” Harden said. “Just missed shots. There’s no excuses. I’ve got to be better individually. Some turnovers where it was just careless. Individually, I’ve got to be better. And as a team, I’ll watch film to see where can we be better. And we’ll just try to continue to improve. This is only our sixth game together as a unit. I’m still trying to figure things out.
“But tonight was good for us, man. We got our ass kicked. Since I’ve been here, everything has been sweet and we’ve been winning games. So tonight was good for us, and we get an opportunity to come down to reality, watch film and just continue to get better and make sure we’re hitting the right strides.”
There’s nothing wrong with Harden’s perspective. Tyrese Maxey, who scored a season-low four points and let Curry start hot with fundamental miscues like leaping at pump fakes, was bound to turn in a clunker at some point. And, though it was jarring to see the worst version of Harden, it’s worth noting he totaled 107 points on 49 field-goal attempts over his first four Sixers games.
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That level of efficiency was unsustainable. Unlike their recent matchups with the Knicks, the Sixers couldn’t slide past Brooklyn by leaning on Harden, Maxey and Joel Embiid to stop runs and render defensive issues irrelevant.
“For us, we’ve been rolling and playing well, so that does affect us,” Tobias Harris said. “It was also a wake-up call for us that we’ve got a lot of work to do. We’ve got to get better in a quick period of time and we’ve got to figure out ways to better ourselves as a group so we don’t have nights like this. It’s a tough loss, but we’ve got to bounce back from it.”
Not every aspect of a game is profound, even ones that are layered with tension, theater and all the other intangible weirdness related to Simmons sitting on the Nets’ bench and returning to the arena where he last appeared in an NBA game. Good teams lose, then often hammer home the point that aberrations happen in professional sports.
To the Sixers’ credit, they’ve played some of their best games this season after dispiriting losses. Among their bounce-back victories are a win over the Warriors following a blowout home loss to the Jazz; beating the Spurs after collapsing against the Clippers; and topping the Bucks to erase the unpleasantness of a 48-point defeat to the Celtics.
So, how will they respond with Harden now on board? Next up are the Magic, who sit last in the Eastern Conference at 17-50.
Valid concerns about defense, depth, and depending on Harden in the playoffs aside, there’s a chance to get back on track Sunday night in Orlando. Execute the basics, play with force and control, and ensure the next loss that leads the basketball world to wonder whether the Sixers’ sky is falling doesn’t come any time soon.
“They were so much more physical,” head coach Doc Rivers said. “That was the only thing: I thought we succumbed to their physicality tonight. When you see guys running through dribble handoffs, that’s a problem. That should never happen. And I’m going to say nine times that happened tonight. So it’s something that we’ll look at the film and we’ll fix.”