The Sixers' turnover troubles continue.
On Monday the Sixers committed a season-high 18 turnovers which led to 17 points by the Jazz in their 109-84 loss (see Instant Replay). It was their fourth straight game of 15 turnovers or more.
“We’ve just got to continue to take better care of the ball,” Robert Covington said. “That comes from execution.”
The Sixers are tied with with the Rockets for third-most turnovers per game in the league (17.3). Their opponents are averaging 19.5 points off the errors.
“I think we just have to be sharp,” Jahlil Okafor said. “We focus on it so much in practice, so we want to see it translate to the games.”
The Jazz jumped at the opportunity to score off the Sixers’ mistakes. The visiting team exceeded their season average of 13.8 points off turnovers.
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“I feel like we were being shoved out of some stuff,” Brown said. “I think dribble hand-offs, when we would go to accept balls from our bigs, they did a good job of blowing that up, shooting gaps where we weren’t physical enough. I think creating leads and coming to balls, I give them credit.”
Joel Embiid led the Sixers with five turnovers. He is averaging 4.4 on the season, and he attributes some of those turnovers to learning the league.
“It just starts with being strong with the ball,” Embiid said. “I haven’t played in two years so I’ve kind of got to simulate those type of situations, double teams or people digging when I’m driving, hand-offs. It’s just going to take time.”
The Sixers will return to practice on Tuesday before heading to Indiana to play the Pacers, who rank third in the NBA with 21.3 points off turnovers per game.
“We’re going to focus on it again tomorrow,” Okafor said. “We keep having good practice days of focusing on not turning the ball over, so eventually it’s going to pay off. We just have to keep at it.”
