Sixers revel in third-quarter submission fetish in loss to Pelicans

The Sixers‘ unstoppable march toward being the worst third-quarter team in the history of basketball continues onward, with a 40-point Pelicans third paving the way for a 126-111 76ers loss to open a brief road trip. Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe both struggled in another frustrating loss without Joel Embiid.

Here’s what I saw.

The effing third quarter AGAIN

I would be open to just about any solution to the Sixers’ third-quarter woes that doesn’t require committing acts of violence or cruelty to animals. Ritualistic sacrifice? A step too far for me, but just almost anything up to that level should probably be on the table. How exactly do you give up 40 points to the New Orleans Pelicans and end up down six heading into the fourth after pushing the lead to 11? Why does every team in the league turn into the Globetrotters? How has Nick Nurse not figured this out?

How much of this does Nick Nurse own? It’s hard to put a number on it, but I think their general lack of a plan, or at least a plan that crosses both halves, has to put him in the crosshairs to some extent. They completely changed their rotation at halftime, using Tyrese Maxey as the early backcourt sub instead of VJ Edgecombe when the reverse option worked completely fine in the first 24 minutes, also throwing in Justin Edwards for the closing minutes of the third after he was a DNP-CD at halftime. It has been easy to say, “They don’t have a consistent lineup because of injuries!” to absolve Nurse for making distinct individual choices, but little things like these add to the chaos.

Swinging wildly from “solid basketball team” to “blinding dumpster fire” also stems from their style of play, which is to say that their defensive structure is inherently high variance. When things are working, the overplays lead to steals and power the fast break, but there are far too many stretches where they pick up cheap fouls on drivers, concede open corner threes in a league where the shot has been mastered, and they give teams easy opportunities to get back in games. Early in the season, it was easy to chalk up huge shooting nights for guys like Anthony Black to variance. Surely that won’t happen again for a role player! But when we’re in game 56, and the house is being burnt down by Saddiq Bey and Bryce McGowens, eventually, you have to look inward at how you are deciding to play the opponent.

It’s hard to play the Joel Embiid injury card every night when they can’t even execute the basic stuff. After going down 13 points and calling a timeout midway through the fourth, the Sixers came out of the huddle and immediately committed a turnover, allowing the Pelicans to go right down the other end and score to punish Philadelphia for the turnover.

Then there’s the personnel side of things, to avoid putting this all on Nurse. When your big addition post-deadline is Cam Payne, a fourth guard who has hit precisely one shot in two games (I don’t count his garbage time layup), it isn’t exactly going to quiet criticism of the deadline, especially as you watch Jared McCain get rolling for the defending champion Thunder. I think the most dispiriting part of this game is that, like in the Lakers loss, the Sixers simply lacked the ability and the willingness to fight as the game got away from them in the second half, with their best players forcing up junk and praying the Pelicans would miss threes against a zone defense that has rarely bothered teams all season.

Yes, the main reason the Sixers can’t win right now is that they have anchored themselves to Joel Embiid and Paul George, who aren’t available to play as often as you need stars to be. They have also handled these situations horribly outside of the initial stretch to open the season.

Another off night for the backcourt

Tyrese Maxey got off to a slow start against the New Orleans Pelicans, 1/7 from the field with misses from every area of the floor. Though Maxey made good reads as a playmaker, including on a skip pass to the corner for a Quentin Grimes three, he continues to fight himself as the No. 1 option with Joel Embiid on the shelf. And unlike in some recent outings, this was not a problem of a competent defense throwing all their resources at Maxey. He did not play particularly well, and he left points on the table that he had to have.

Although the focus has been on Maxey’s declining percentage from three-point land, Saturday’s game featured another night of poor inside-the-arc scoring, with Maxey still struggling to get to the rim and finish. Once again, he played a team with solid perimeter defenders and poor rim protection, and Herb Jones was able to guide him where he needed in order to force misses around the basket. The Pelicans mixed in enough soft doubles and traps to coax Maxey into forcing up some shots from time to time, taking contested jumpers that he didn’t need to fire up early in the shot clock. Maybe it’s nitpicking, because I’m fine with Maxey hoisting early and often, but with the offense performing well in this game, it was not the time to chase possessions or try to get yourself going. His playmaking was pretty damn good, and he might have been able to run up the assist count with a heavier focus on passing.

For the first 24 minutes, VJ Edgecombe was prepared to pick up the slack in the backcourt. On the back of a solid, if turnover-heavy effort against the Hawks, Edgecombe found the perfect balance of aggression against New Orleans, exploiting any gaps the Pelicans left in the defense while chasing Maxey around the floor. When New Orleans overplayed an action that seemed clearly designed to get Maxey the ball across the face of the defense, Edgecombe drove right down Main Street and finished an acrobatic two on the left side of the rim.

Edgecombe’s lifeblood was the midrange in the first two quarters, and that has been a trouble spot for Edgecombe at times this season, but may ultimately be the key to hitting his long-term upside. There was a particularly nice sequence for Edgecombe in the second quarter, when he hit a jumper off of a sidestep while absorbing a foul at the top of his release, a vision of what the future may look like. Outside of the scoring, Edgecombe also continues to improve his contributions as a rebounder by being one of the few guys on the team who consistently attack the ball off of the rim.

Unfortunately, there is a reason most teams have gone away from living on those shots from anyone other than top-tier superstars. As the game wore on, Edgecombe’s jumper luck tilted in the other direction, and he absolutely chased the game late in the third with Maxey on the bench and the lead slipping away from Philadelphia. I am willing to trade short-term efficiency for his growth there, as he learns to pick his spots and create enough separation to make it a key plank of his game. But that approach will lead to more losses like these, because he’s simply not good enough at this stuff yet. Sprinkle in his inability to hit threes since 2026 started, and he has a problem on his hands.

By the end of the night, both guards had shot their way into a loss. A combined 3/16 from three with ugly overall efficiency from your two best available players? Not going to get it done.

Other notes

— Say what you will about losing to a mediocre Hawks team, but I do think the Sixers have come out of the break with the right energy and effort. They have not played their best basketball for the last two games, but it has not been for lack of trying or because they’re using absences for Joel Embiid and Paul George as an excuse to mail it in.

Well, at least that was true in the first half!

— Pretty noteworthy that Trendon Watford was pulled from the rotation entirely for this game, with Cam Payne playing a relatively significant role. Watford had a particularly tough game against Atlanta with a handful of record scratch moments from three, and I don’t think they can justify playing those ultra-big lineups with him as a nominal three unless he is willing to be a much more willing jumpshooter.

For whatever Jabari Walker’s flaws are, you know he’s going to play hard and he is willing to take threes, even if the shots often end with a clang off the iron. He offered a nice lift for Philadelphia off the bench on Saturday, hitting a transition three and converting one of the ugliest and-one sequences in recent Sixers history during his first-half stint. For me, I think you can play one of Walker or Watford, but likely not both, assuming you want Barlow to play a pretty sizable role as a starter.

— Boy, did the Sixers ever need a good Kelly Oubre game. It has been a rough week or two for him, including on the defensive end of the floor, where his attentiveness off-ball has been nowhere near his usual standard. This was a solid offensive game for him through 2.5 quarters, but his efforts were for naught in the end.