Philadelphia 76ers head coach Nick Nurse admitted his team lacked energy, movement and offensive execution after Friday’s 119-95 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers.
“It was a tough night for most everybody, to be honest with you,” Nurse said. “The overall energy, movement in general. I think our defense wasn’t nearly moving the way we needed it to. I didn’t think we were chasing down rebounds early.”
The 76ers shot just 36.5% from the field and made 10 of 40 three-point attempts. Joel Embiid missed all nine field-goal attempts, finishing with six points and seven rebounds.
Nurse said Philadelphia failed to create the movement and spacing that usually help Embiid find better opportunities.
“Joel struggled, didn’t get a ton of great looks. They obviously crowded him a lot,” Nurse explained. “But I didn’t think we played well enough when he had the ball away from the ball, cutting and spacing and stuff.”
He added: “We’ve been really good at that. It’s been pretty good scoring situations for us whether he’s shooting or not, and we just didn’t get to a cutting and spacing game very well when he had the ball.”
Nurse also pointed to the team’s overall offensive stagnation, describing a performance that lacked the usual pace and flow.
“We’ve created a lot of the shots we want tonight. We had a lot of tough shots and a lot of jammed-up possessions, more than we’ve had in the other nine games this year,” he said.
The coach identified transition opportunities and initial spacing as two areas that Philadelphia failed to execute.
“It’s running in transition. I saw a lot of the ball and not people in front of it when we had chances to run better,” Nurse said. “Not enough next action, quickly into next-action basketball. It was kind of one action and stand tonight.”
Despite the defeat, Nurse said he did not want to overstate the setback, noting that the team had generally improved in those areas during its opening nine games.
“I feel like leading into this game we were really improving in those areas and just took a step back tonight,” he said.
Cleveland’s Donovan Mitchell scored 23 points and recorded eight assists, while the Cavaliers took advantage of Philadelphia’s early mistakes. Nurse specifically highlighted Mitchell’s transition scoring.
“Mitchell’s first eight points were in transition,” Nurse said. “You know he’s going to be aggressive. You hate to kind of gift him eight out of the blocks like that.”
Philadelphia remained within five points late in the third quarter before Cleveland connected on consecutive three-pointers and extended its advantage.
“I thought at that point, as poorly as we were playing, and we were still hanging around, that if we could kind of click in energy-wise and start doing some things, we were going to be in good shape,” Nurse said. “But they are the ones that kind of clicked away from us.”
The coach also praised Jabari Walker, who contributed eight points and five rebounds in 17 minutes off the bench.
“He just goes out there, plays hard, plays well and has an impact,” Nurse said. “He just seems to play well every time he hits the floor.”
Nurse confirmed Philadelphia had not discussed resting Embiid for Sunday’s game. The 76ers will visit the Chicago Bulls after suffering their second loss in 10 games.
