The two technicals killed us - we gave away two points and lost by two. Wade being sick also cost us the game as Niang was useless; 0 points in 18 minutes and he got beat relentlessly on defense and even got a technical. We needed him tonight with Wade out and he had his worst game of the year.
Daugherty was right - the Sixers played as well as they can play, shooting 54.5% and 42.3%. When Buddy Hield is on his game it's very hard to win. He was 9-for-13 and Oubre 10-for-14. Those two killed us, along with their complementary guys. Reed was 6-for-10 and Martin 5-for-5.
Martin averages 3 points per game; he had 10. Reed averages 6.3 and he had 13.
It was a combination of Wade being out, Niang bumbling around and playing half the speed as everyone else, and everybody on the Sixers playing their A game on the same night. Maxey, Oubre, and Hield are all very good scorers who can light it up, and they did.
However, the Cavs let them take it to the rim with impunity all night and make layup after layup. Mobley had four blocks but Allen was pretty ineffective at forcing misses at the rim. I thought with our height advantage the Sixers would have to shoot 50 3's, but only 26 of their 88 shots were from deep. They just kept attacking the rim and the Cavs couldn't stop them. This was the 8th highest scoring game this year against the Cavs.
Pretty bad defense tonight, which is uncharacteristic of this team. But when both Oubre and Hield are on fire and a guy like Martin is 5-for-5, this team can beat anybody.
