Feb 9, 2026; Portland, Oregon, USA; Portland Trail Blazers center Donovan Clingan (23) dunks the ball against the Philadelphia 76ers during the second half at Moda Center. Mandatory Credit: Jaime Valdez-Imagn Images
When your legs are battling the toll of playing five games in nine days on the other side of the country, and a charter flight is waiting to get you back home, the last thing you want to see in that final game of the road trip is a team that plays with the pace of the Portland Trail Blazers.
Add to that playing without two starters and the top scorer off the bench, and you can understand why the Sixers had a monumental hill to climb Monday night.
They scaled it as well as they could for the first half, but the absence of Joel Embiid, Dominick Barlow, Quentin Grimes and fresh legs certainly caught up with them in the second half as Portland scored 49 points in the third quarter and rode that to a 135-118 win.
A one point halftime lead for the Sixers quickly evaporated as Portland began the second half with a 36-11 run to erase any thoughts of a happy ending to the road trip for the Sixers.
When energy is a bit drained, defensive rotation is often slow. It couldn't have been more evident than when the Trail Blazers moved the ball quickly on the perimeter to often find wide open looks from long range. No one benefitted as much as Toumani Camara, who drained eight of his 10 three-point attempts and finished with a team-high and career-high 30 points. For the game, Portland made 22-of-54 threes and constantly had Philadelphia scrambling defensively.
Tyrese Maxey scored 30 points for the Sixers and Kelly Oubre Jr. added 19.
Tyrese Maxey has to be in the top 0.01% when it comes to fastest guys in the league pic.twitter.com/byfLl8VMvO
"Obviously there was a bunch of energy things, we didn't rebound it well enough, transition rebounding and didn't get out to shooters near enough," said Nick Nurse to reporters in Portland after his team fell to 30-23. "They were just lacing up threes. They were up the floor quick. We were losing matchups. When we did make them miss they were getting back and kicking them straight out for non-contest threes.
"We have to keep playing those possessions out and we didn't seem to have juice to do it there for a stretch and, obviously, they blew it wide open. Eight threes in the third quarter. (We) turned it over some, gave them some transition too, so just a really bad third quarter."
The success of the road trip can't be diminished by the loss to Portland, however, after the Sixers won three of the five games. More importantly for Nurse, confidence had to be built by the play of the role players he is going to need more and more as the season progresses. He still needs to find solutions to being dominated in the third quarter (49-22 on Monday) and on the boards, a 60-45 advantage for Portland.
Pushed into the starting lineup after the suspension of Paul George, Barlow had a wonderful road trip before missing the game against Portland. Trendon Watford proved he is an extra ball-handler the team will need, as well as his versatile game that meshes well with the stars Embiid and Maxey. Justin Edwards continues to find his offensive groove and Adem Bona and Andre Drummond give Nurse plenty to think about when it comes to backing up Embiid.
In all, the road trip couldn't have been much better. Well, maybe if a second half meltdown didn't happen against the Los Angeles Lakers in a four-point loss on Thursday. But the organization has to be somewhat satisfied before closing out the "first half" with a final game at home against the New York Knicks on Wednesday before the All-Star break.
"I would say four and a half really good games," said Nurse. "I think there's a quarter here tonight that's really bad and one quarter in L.A. (against the Lakers). So most of it was really good basketball. Not bad.
"I think that in these situations it's a chance to give Justin and (MarJon) Beauchamp tonight a chance, to give Watford a start. I think we're still learning and those guys need more minutes. We're learning them, they need to get more minutes, they need more conditioning, they need to get in the groove of things. And when everybody's playing, there's no minutes for them to do that.
"These guys (Portland) are just really hot, really fast. Pretty long and athletic for us tonight with the group that we had. But the guys that stepped in there did okay."
Wat and ☝️ pic.twitter.com/zdVOYmNKYt
As Doc Rivers suggested during his time as coach with the Sixers, sometimes there may be scheduled losses. While practically no one agrees with what he professed, Monday just may have been one of those. Sitting Embiid before a long flight back to the East Coast sort of suggested that.
And, perhaps few would argue, if you have him energetic for the meeting with the Knicks on Wednesday at Xfinity Mobile Arena, that is more important than the loss to Portland.
With a better knowledge of his rotation following the road trip, the seemingly healthy Embiid and the return of George to the lineup at the end of March, the Sixers could keep themselves within striking distance of a top-half seeding in the East. The role players no doubt increased that confidence level on the road trip.
And after Wednesday, the break couldn't have come at a better time for VJ Edgecombe. Almost every rookie is pretty much cooked when the All-Star break comes, and Edgecombe is no different. Most of his misses from the perimeter over the past few games have been short, huge evidence that fatigue is his biggest competition in the league right now. He shot just 24-for-64 (37.5 percent) on the road trip.
One more game before a much-needed break. But as much as the rest is needed, so is a win over the Knicks. which would certainly make for a better vacation for the Sixers.
