Sixers suffer first loss as comeback against Celtics falls short

Philadelphia — Even amid a crystal-clear 4-0 start, there were evident warts for the Sixers to tend to.

The defensive end of the floor has been the ugly sore for this team. Friday's NBA Cup game was a new type of test for the Sixers.

The Boston Celtics had film to work with from the season-opener. They could adjust things that they did poorly en route to a fall-from-ahead loss on their home court just over a week ago.

Philadelphia had film, too. But they had the euphoria of an undefeated start to the season.

The enormous downgrades in the Celtics' frontcourt are as big a reason to be pessimistic about Boston as Jayson Tatum's achilles injury is. But if you play sloppy defense, even the most uninspiring big-man rotation will hurt you from time to time.

On Friday, it was symptomatic of a bigger problem ailing the Sixers.

You're supposed to close out on the perimeter with choppy steps. That affords you control as you approach the ball with momentum. The Sixers were frantically jumping, conceding driving lanes.

The Celtics may have talent deficits that will likely lead to a sub-standard season. But they still have a handful of players who can shoot and attack closeouts.

When the Sixers gave up that first line of defense, the man in the middle had to rotate to supply help. That left the likes of Luka Garza open at the rim for easy scores.

That's just one example of how the problem started on the perimeter.

But you'd have to go to the offensive end of the floor to push the first domino.

The Sixers committed four turnovers in the first quarter. They collected just one offensive rebound on 10 missed shots.

Their foes took eight more shots and made a blistering 61.5 percent of their attempts in the opening quarter.

The game began with some fairly normal tactics. Jaylen Brown punished Philadelphia in cross-matches. Payton Pritchard knocked down a fistful of pull-up jumpers in the paint. The Sixers were allowing the right types of shots.

It devolved as the first quarter went on. They committed live-ball turnovers and missed shots with bad floor balance. It led to transition opportunities for Boston. Between Anfernee Simons, Derrick White, Pritchard and Brown, the Celtics can pack a punch in the blink of an eye.

Boston's lead expanded to seven. That quickly turned into 10. 10 became 12. Suddenly the Sixers were waiting for a White three to land to dictate whether they'd be down 15 or 18 before the first quarter ended.

Justin Edwards was a central figure in Philadelphia's first-quarter spiral. He missed three open triples in 90 seconds. It's difficult to cast blame at a player for missing jump shots, especially when you're talking about a role player on a cost-effective contract. But those threes not only failed to put much-needed points on the board for the Sixers, they sent Boston out in transition too.

By the time the first quarter ended, the Sixers were punching up.

To Philadelphia's credit, they leveled the playing field early in the third quarter, erasing a 24-point deficit with plenty of time to play.

The Sixers were down 11 at halftime. They came out with Kelly Oubre Jr. on Brown. Oubre's length and motor muddied up his dribble, sending the Sixers running the other way. VJ Edgecombe spent time on White and Simons, neutralizing the Celtics' secondary perimeter threats.

"They were trying really hard to get me off of Jaylen. Find the mismatches or switches, things like that. VJ's a helluva defender. So at the end of the day, if Derrick is handling the ball, if Anfernee is handling the ball, we trust that if they do get a switch, he can hold his own," Oubre said postgame.

It's a testament to the confidence they have in the rookie Edgecombe.

"That was just it. We're probably going to do that a whole lot, probably guard the other team's best players. I look forward to that because I love the challenges and I love playing defense with him."

It was a good adjustment. It would've likely propelled a victory had Nick Nurse not rolled the dice on a group of players he hadn't seen much of at this early juncture of the season.

It was a lineup of Edgecombe, Quentin Grimes, Edwards, Trendon Watford and Andre Drummond.

"Trying to find some minutes for these guys. Got three guys pushing 40 minutes. Getting Tyrese out there, that one went against what we thought we were going to do a little bit," Nurse explained after the game.

"We got a lot going on. Usually, I'm taking Tyrese out to end the third because Joel is coming back in the fourth and I want to pair them together. But then we ended up flipping that. So that ended up not being a great thing to do."

That's a lot of offensive responsibility on Edgecombe this early in his career. This was not a game that Grimes will want any team to remember when he returns to free agency this summer. The offensive end of the floor did not find Edwards as the game went on. Watford just made his debut a few days ago. Drummond airballed a six-foot floater.

Nurse expressed regret that Maxey had not been in the game down the stretch of the third quarter. Had he anticipated what he was going to do with Embiid, he'd have used Maxey in that critical time.

A two-point deficit with three-and-a-half minutes to play in the third. A 12-point hole with 49 seconds to go before the fourth quarter was upon the Sixers.

It's a trend that's prevailed through these first five games. The Sixers have trailed by double digits in four of them. They are fortunate to be 4-1. Friday was the night that playing with fire burned them.

"We don't want it to be a trend. But the main thing is slow third quarters. We've been winning or close to winning all of those games going into half. Then we have a slow third quarter, really bad third quarter, then we come back in the fourth and play like how we were playing in the first and second," Maxey told reporters after the loss.

"Tonight, we played really slow the first quarter. Had a really bad first quarter. The remaining three quarters, we were really good. We won every quarter after that. So I think we did a good job of being resilient."

Maxey knows his team has yet to put together 48 minutes of sound basketball. He's optimistic it's coming.