Instant observations: Massive Sixers comeback not enough vs. Pelicans

The Sixers nearly climbed all the way out of a 31-point hole at halftime, but the Pelicans held on for a 103-95 win in Philadelphia.

Here’s what I saw.

The Good

— Lol.

— Okay, to be fair, I loved the fight from this team in the second half. These guys have plenty of justification to feel sorry for themselves right now, and after getting punched in the mouth for 24 straight minutes, they easily could have laid down.

It was a team effort to try to salvage something out of this game in the second half. Kelly Oubre attacked the rim with reckless abandon, Tobias Harris got to his midrange jumper, Paul Reed flew around the floor like a maniac, and so on down the line. God bless Buddy Hield for turning and egging on the crowd with Philadelphia down 16 points late in the third quarter.

This would have gone down as one of the most improbable comebacks in the history of the Sixers, and perhaps professional basketball. A big part of that was the Pelicans playing with their food and thinking they could limp to the finish line, but you have to capitalize on that as the opponent, so the Sixers get full marks for reacting the way they did. New Orleans looked genuinely shell-shocked at times in the fourth quarter, and there were a couple of instances where Philly was on the wrong end of the whistle. Herb Jones got away with what looked like a pretty obvious travel midway through the fourth, and the out-of-bounds call with 1:11 left looked like another blown one for this crew.

Good job, good effort, I suppose, just not enough.

The Bad

— Aside from the entire first half?

The Ugly

— The worst thing you could say about this game (or the first half specifically) is that it happened despite a reasonably good effort from the Sixers. Paul Reed came off of the bench and immediately pounded the glass, earning applause for a pair of offensive rebounds. Cam Payne, the smallest man on the floor, checked into the game and tipped out a second chance opportunity to a teammate. Tobias Harris, never one to provide much help as a rim protector, had a nice moment as a weakside helper that turned into a Kelly Oubre three in transition. It didn’t look that bad early on.

And to take it a step further, after the Sixers got completely bulldozed in the first half, they spent much of the final 24 minutes scratching and clawing for anything they could get. Harris hit the floor for a loose ball down 14 points with five minutes left, Reed continued to grind, Kelly Oubre continued to attack, and quite a few fans stuck around to see if they could dig out of a 31-point hole coming out of halftime.

But the Sixers simply don’t have a competent NBA group available right now. This should have been clear watching them lose to the Nets and Grizzlies, two crappy teams everyone assumed they would beat. For the rest of the year, until/unless Joel Embiid returns, there are few games you can pencil in as a good performance ahead of time, let alone a win. It’s not easy to put together winning lineups when your best groups are comprised of players who should be depth pieces.

In a game that is increasingly about pace and space, the Sixers often have neither. Their lead ballhandler is Kyle Lowry, who was moved by the Heat in part because he is overextended in a high-volume role at 37 years old. When he can play off of advantage creators, his intelligence and off-ball value are crystal clear. If he needs to break someone down or try to bust up zone coverage, though, you’re in trouble.

The Sixers went out at the deadline and acquired one of the most prolific shooters in the NBA. Unfortunately, Buddy Hield’s hot start has given way to a brutal stretch, with Hield cold from deep and occasionally unsure of what he should do. Missing shots is bad enough, but against the Pelicans, Hield turned down multiple good looks that should have been instant catch-and-shoot jumpers. That can’t happen.

We don’t have to belabor the point with Tobias Harris, but he’s a $40 million player who, save for a pair of games last week, has just been another one of the guys. This is the best point he is going to have the rest of the year to “get into a flow” as he likes to say, and instead, he’s missing shots early in games and sliding into obscurity the longer it goes on. Harris’ effort on the glass was much better than in some recent games, but it almost feels patronizing to focus so hard on the little things for a guy who has been one of the highest-paid players in the league for a half-decade. Yay, little Timmy, good hustle! Harris came alive in the second half, and kudos for that, but it was too late for it to have any impact on the outcome.

Some guys who are playing regular minutes just simply aren’t good enough. Mo Bamba is starting games a couple of times a week, and when he doesn’t start, he frequently gets removed from the rotation entirely. KJ Martin is moonlighting as a backup center and a backup wing and doesn’t really have the skill set to do either. Two-way guys like Ricky Council IV and Jeff Dowtin Jr. have offered glimmers of hope, but you can only expect so much out of two-way players.

(While we’re on the subject of the young guys, one of the negative consequences of Philadelphia’s long-term focus is that these boring, largely unimportant games feature little for the fanbase to care about. It’s a collection of largely older and expiring players who are likely playing elsewhere next season, with no development stories to cling to.)

There are a lot of people looking for someone to blame, whether it’s Daryl Morey, Nick Nurse, or (in many cases) Harris. I would remind some of you — not all of you, some of you — that you were against the idea of consolidating several role players and picks to trade for flawed stars or sub-stars. Part of the argument to do so is for exactly this sort of scenario. Philadelphia’s volume scoring option on offense has been Kelly Oubre, who has had some good moments lately but isn’t equipped to carry the burden for an injury-plagued team like this one. This is a team built to support the Embiid and Maxey show, but it is only really built to do that. When you don’t have those guys, and when you’re down several quality role players on top of that, your hope of winning rests heavily on blind luck. Great teams, even good teams can create their own luck. This group is nowhere close to that.

You are certainly entitled to feel however you want about the product, which isn’t good right now. You spend your time watching the games, your money on attending them, and (if I’m lucky!) you read and listen to coverage about them to feel closer to the team. Like anyone else, you want a return on your investment, and that’s 100 percent justified. But there’s no real reason to drive yourself crazy over a talent-strapped team who shot like complete crap and still shaved 20+ points off of New Orleans’ halftime deficit.