On Saturday, the Philadelphia 76ers lost their seventh straight game as they fell to the Miami Heat 118-95 at Wells Fargo Center.
With eight games to play, the 76ers, who have been officially eliminated from the playoffs, are playing at the string. The goal at this point is to improve their draft position.
The 76ers have to make sure their draft pick falls below six because their first-round pick is protected for selections 1-6. If it goes above six, the pick goes to OKC, but the Draft Lottery will decide that. However, Philly wants to give themselves the best odds, so they want to keep losing.
When the season started, many thought the 76ers would be championship contenders, but Joel Embiid, who signed a three-year, $193 million extension in September, played only 19 games before getting shut down for the season in February, Paul George, who the team signed to a four-year, $212 million deal in the offseason, was ruled out for the season earlier this month after playing in only 43 games.
Obviously, the 76ers did not accomplish what they were supposed to accomplish this season, and after the team’s loss to the Heat, head coach Nick Nurse talked about what went wrong this season.
“I mean, obviously, it’s not anyway near where we had hoped it would be when we set out this summer and this fall, that’s for sure,” he said. “That’s the only thing you can say is it was, super struggle. Just most of the way I think there was only a couple of times of some momentum, December, and then there was another four or five-game winning streak in there, too, where you were kind of always holding out hope that the team was playing better and getting some wins and hopefully get some players back and said this numerous times it just didn’t seem like the injury bug would ever leave us. It just seemed like every time we had a good game and got a win or something, it costs us a player or two for the next one, and we could never really build any momentum, so obviously super, super disappointing, not where we want to be at all. That’s about it.”
No one expected the season to go this way. Now, they have to ensure next season will be better, and hopefully, that means a healthy Embiid and George.
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