Sixers fall to Bucks on Opening Night, in absence of Embiid and George

The Sixers looked good, until they didn’t.

Without their superstar pairing of Joel Embiid and Paul George, the 76ers opened their season with a 124-109 loss to the Milwaukee Bucks and Damian Lillard who led the way for the Deer with 30 points. 

Coming fresh out of the gates the Sixers were playing great basketball; moving the ball with rhythm, taking and making good shots, rebounding the ball well, and playing all around smart basketball. The efforts of Tyrese Maxey, Andre Drummond, and Kelly Oubre Jr helped the Sixers to hold a slight lead for the majority of the first quarter and even into the opening minutes of the second before Milwaukee took the lead and never looked back.

While the Sixers kept it a close game for the majority of the second quarter, it just seemed as the game went on things just continued to go further south for Philly who’s play diminished through the period. By halftime Milwaukee led 58-47 and held the Sixers at arms length toward the end of the period.

As the second half got under way, Milwaukee only made things worse for the Sixers who just could not make a stop on defense and struggled with proper shot selection. The Bucks continued to work the floor as Taurean Prince came out of the break and drained four consecutive threes while Lillard and Giannis Antetokounmpo slashed the gashed the Sixers defense one at a time. The Bucks worked their lead to as much as 22 before ending the period with a 100-81 lead.

While the Sixers made a few futile attempts to make a comeback in the fourth period, even bringing the deficit down to as few as 13 the team did not have enough in the tank to go toe-to-toe with the East’s best without their two best players. The Bucks held strong through the final period and put some great work in on both ends of the floor before both teams began to empty their bench with about two minutes to go in the game.

With the loss the Sixers will start the season 0-1 and look ahead to Friday night’s matchup from Scotiabank Arena against the Toronto Raptors at 7:00pm.