In a game between two teams struggling to find the win column lately, the Philadelphia 76ers or the Chicago Bulls were bound to pick up a win Monday night. The Bulls — who came in losers of six straight games — proved to be the hungrier team by scoring their highest point total of the season thus far, beating the 76ers on their home floor 142-110 in a high-scoring rout at the Wells Fargo Center.
The loss marks Philadelphia’s eighth straight; the 76ers haven’t won since defeating the Lakers at home before the All-Star break on Jan. 28. The 76ers kept it close at the start, trailing by nine after the opening 12 minutes but falling apart from there. After giving up 39 first quarter points, Philadelphia gave up 36 more in the second quarter en route to a 75-point first half by the Bulls.
Chicago picked up where it left off and came out of halftime blazing hot, outscoring Philadelphia 40-18 in the third quarter alone. The Bulls’ 39-point lead was the largest of the game and it blew the contest wide open.
Six Chicago players finished in double figures — four starters and two coming off the bench — as Josh Giddey, who had a double-double at halftime, led the Bulls with a team-best 25 points, 16 rebounds and six assists. Kevin Huerter added 23 points and connected on a whopping seven 3-pointers while Zach Collins finished with 19 points. Dalen Terry, a 2022 second-round draft pick who averages just three points per game, added 17 points off the bench.
Six players finished in double figures for the 76ers but no Philadelphia player exceeded 30 minutes on the floor. Paul George and Kelly Oubre Jr. finished with 19 points apiece while Tyrese Maxey added 13 points. This stretch for the 76ers (20-36), who sit in 12th place in the Eastern Conference standings, is part of a tough season that has gotten progressively worse.
Where the 76ers go from here
At 20-37, Philadelphia now trails Chicago by 2 1/2 games for the final play-in spot in the East, and 14 of the Sixers’ final 24 games are on the road. Additionally, there’s the embarrassing fact that the Sixers also trail a tanking Brooklyn team by a game. The Sixers and Bulls play each other on the last day of the season, and Philadelphia would win a tie-breaker with a win in that game, but Philadelphia would have to catch the Bulls in the standings for that to matter. That proposition seems increasingly unlikely.
In fact, the Sixers are now incentivized to pivot sharply in the other direction. Philadelphia owes a top-6 protected pick to Oklahoma City, but if the Sixers can position themselves near the bottom of the standings they have a decent chance of keeping the pick and salvaging something from this lost season; it would enable them to nab a plum prospect from a strong draft.
Currently owning the league’s sixth-worst record, Philadelphia could shut down the ailing Joel Embiid and Paul George for the season and try to let Toronto, who entered Monday’s games two games behind Philadelphia, pass them in the standings. Helpfully, the teams play each other twice in March; those now look like must-lose games for Philly.
Finishing behind Toronto would give Philadelphia the NBA’s fifth-worst record and a 42% chance of landing in the top four in the May lottery drawing, in which the top four spots in the draft are randomly selected. The Sixers could also end up fifth or sixth and would have a 61% chance of keeping their pick in any position.
Philadelphia would seem unlikely to fall behind the bottom four teams in the NBA standings — the Charlotte Hornets, Utah Jazz or New Orleans Pelicans would have to win seven more times before the end of the season even if the Sixers lost every game. But fifth from the bottom is a realistic goal.
Positioning themselves for a better than 50-50 chance of keeping the pick seems like the least bad alternative for the Sixers’ crushing disappointment of a season that is rapidly circling the drain. — John Hollinger, senior writer
Required reading
(Photo: Bill Streicher / Imagn Images)
