BOSTON–The Philadelphia 76ers were unable to get off on the right foot in the 2022-23 season as they fell to the Boston Celtics on opening night 126-117. It was a tough night overall for Philadelphia as they were unable to really find a rhythm offensively despite the 117 points.
The stat sheet will say the Sixers shot 50% from the floor and they knocked down 13 triples. However, they committed 14 turnovers, six from Joel Embiid, and the Celtics converted those turnovers into 22 points.
Boston also had a huge transition advantage as they outscored Philadelphia 24-2 on the break.
After the loss, Embiid and the Sixers gave their thoughts on the bad turnovers and transition defensive effort.
“I gotta be better. We all gotta be better. It’s a team effort. A long way to go. That’s a team that just went to the finals and have been together for so many years. We’re still fairly new. A lot of new guys who are trying to find the right fit and the right way to play offensively and defensively, but we’ll be fine. It’s one game.”
“Just keep making good decisions. Better decisions. A couple of them were just careless turnovers, but we had a bunch of them overall. Our turnovers tonight (Tuesday), a couple of them were just bad. It’s tough to win a game when you gift a good basketball—you can get away with that on some nights. Not against this team.”
“Just shots, turnovers. When we turn the ball over—I remember I had one where I just turn the ball over and basically m gave them a layup. So that can’t happen. For the most part, if we keep them in our half-court defense and get set, we’re pretty solid, so can’t allow that to happen. Now we move forward. Obviously game one. We wanted to win, but we take some things out of that loss.”
“Just us being stagnant. Being stagnant, us not giving up ourselves for our teammates. A lot of times, we left people on islands. In those situations where somebody can screen away, get somebody else open, cut to the basket, get somebody else an open shot and be able to move when we get stagnant like that. It’s the little stuff. We’ll watch film, learn from it, get better.”
“Communication. Especially, if they’re gonna play with that lineup and have me guarding Al and space him out in the corner where I can’t really help…we just gotta communicate better. We gotta be on the…
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