Give 'em credit for sticking around for a half. Somehow, without Joel Embiid, Nerlens Noel or Robert Covington -- very arguably the Sixers' three best players at this point in time -- the Sixers took a seven-point lead halfway into the third quarter in San Antonio, against an undermanned-but-not-that-undermanned Spurs squad. San Antonio captured the lead and never looked back, eventually escaping with a 102-86 victory that marks the Ballers' fourth loss in five games, after losing just three of their previous 13.
It's not a mystery why the Sixers have slumped lately -- of those four losses, three have come on the road without Joel Embiid, our North Star (if not yet technically our All-Star), and two have come without Robert Covington, currently our greatest force of lineup stabilization. In the meantime, it's been a lot of Jahlil, a lot of TLC, a bit too much Dario and certainly too much Sauce. The Sixers are magic enough in 2016-'17 to have a shot in just about every game they play, but without those dudes in the lineup, it's just not a very good one.
We were bound to have a stretch like this at some point this season, and just before the All-Star break seems about as logical a place as any. (Gotta get Joel plenty of rest before his epic performance in the Skills Competition, certainly.) But uh, this isn't as much fun without those guys, so here's hoping we can get 'em back in the fold for Saturday's imminently winnable game against the weirdly hot Heat in Miami on Saturday. It's not too late to forge one more push for the 8th seed before the February layover, but as JoJo certainly would've said if he was a catcher for the Yankees in the '50s, it's getting late early.