Well, that wasn't pretty.
Without Joel Embiid, the Sixers were beat up on the boards, 53-33, with 19 of those 53 coming on the offensive glass. They were yet again exposed defensively in the pick-and-roll, allowing a 41-point third quarter.
It all added up to a 130-115 beatdown by the Blazers at the Wells Fargo Center Saturday afternoon (see observations).
Missing the league's third-leading rebounder against the league's second-best rebounding team isn't ideal, but the Sixers weren't prepared to use that excuse.
"I think as a team collectively we just didn't rebound good enough against a team like this," Ben Simmons said. "It's a group effort, rebounding, and I think just all of us combined, I don't think we did enough. Obviously we didn't do enough."
The shame of such a dreadful effort is that it took away from one of the best performances of Simmons' young NBA career. The All-Star made a concerted effort to attack the basket early, posting up on some of Portland's smaller defenders.
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The results were impressive: a season-high 29 points on 11 of 17 shooting, 10 assists and seven rebounds. And those numbers weren't hollow in the sense that he was excellent from the opening tip.
Tobias Harris (20 points) and Jimmy Butler (15 points) were also solid. It was the play of the supporting cast that hurt.
JJ Redick made just one field goal on 10 shots. The seven-point performance ended his career-high 64-game double-figure point streak.
After a fantastic game against Miami on Thursday, Boban Marjanovic was exposed mightily against the Blazers. Portland was able to pick on Marjanovic in pick-and-rolls with All-Star guard Damian Lillard and center Jusuf Nurkic.
Whether it was Marjanovic, Amir Johnson - who oddly supplanted Jonah Bolden in the second half - or Mike Scott when the Sixers went small, it didn't matter. Nurkic and new backup center Enes Kanter killed the Sixers, combining for 40 points and 18 rebounds.
Despite a significant offensive rebounding gap, the Sixers found themselves down by just three at halftime. Then they allowed the Blazers to shoot 63 percent in a 41-point third period.
Embiid's absence hurts, but the Sixers had enough talent on the floor to not turn in such a poor defensive effort.
"Clearly we miss Joel," Harris said. "There's no getting around that. He's a big piece to our team, but we don't have him right now and we have to be able to get efforts from everybody else on the team."
In two games against Portland without Embiid, the Sixers have lost by a combined 49 points.
What can the Sixers take away from a drubbing by the Blazers without Embiid? Not much. They're neck-and-neck with the Celtics and just behind the Pacers for the third seed in the East.
The only thing they can really do is move on to the Pelicans - who may or may not have All-NBA big Anthony Davis in the lineup - in a road matchup on Monday night. Their focus should be there, not on Portland.
"Learn and get better from it," Butler said. "Put it behind us. What else can you do? They beat our a-- twice."
Butler, who was as somber as we've seen after a loss, was asked why this lost seemed to sting so much.
"Because they beat our a-- twice. Easily, too."
On to New Orleans.
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