Well, the Philadelphia 76ers won't be going undefeated this season. After kicking off the campaign with three straight wins, the Sixers dropped their first game of the season 106-93 to the Detroit Pistons on Sunday night.
It wasn't the prettiest performance for the Sixers, who mustered their lowest scoring output of the season. In fairness, they were on the second night of a back-to-back and missing two starters in Joel Embiid and VJ Edgecombe. But, this is the NBA, and those absences aren't an excuse, as the Pistons were also missing a pair of starters in Jalen Duran and Ausar Thompson.
Ultimately, it just wasn't a great game from the Sixers. But, it wasn't all bad. Here, we'll look at one clear negative and one clear positive from Philly's first loss of the season. Let's start with the positive.
Positive: 76ers continue to win turnover battle
The Sixers have done a good job of forcing turnovers early in the season, and that trend continued on Sunday night. They had been forcing an average of 19 turnovers per performance heading into the game, and they forced another 17 against the Pistons, which they were able to directly parlay into 20 points off of turnovers. They doubled up Detroit in that statistical category, as the Pistons scored just 10 points off of Philadelphia's 11 turnovers.
The Sixers have won the turnover battle in all four games that they've played this season, which is pretty impressive considering that all of the new pieces on the roster are still getting acclimated to each other. They've clearly prioritized taking care of the ball on offense and forcing turnovers on defense, which is a recipe for success, even though it didn't result in victory on Sunday night.
Negative: Continued struggles from long range
When it comes to picking a negative from the loss to Detroit, there are a couple areas we could focus on. The Sixers were dominated on the glass, as they were outrebounded 54-37. They gave up 15 offensive rebounds, which led to a plethora of easy second-chance points for the Pistons. But, the Sixers were extremely shorthanded in the frontcourt for the game, so the fact that they were outrebounded isn't much of a surprise. They started LeBron James as the de facto center in the game, after all.
More concerning is the team's continued struggle from long range. The Sixers converted just seven of their 27 team attempts from beyond the arc against Detroit, which translates to 26 percent. No one on the roster shot particularly well. Tyrese Maxey, LeBron James and Jaylen Brown combined to go 3-of-14.
It's the third time in their first four games that the Sixers have shot below 30 percent from 3-point range as a team. They shot 25 percent from distance against the Cleveland Cavaliers and 28 percent against the New York Knicks.
It's still early in the season, and the Sixers have capable shooters, so it's not time to panic yet. But, it's an area that they're going to want to improve in, quickly.
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