Hospital Sixers doomed by bad first quarter in loss to Thunder

The Sixers got crushed in the first quarter and spent the rest of the night fighting from behind in a loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Here's what I saw.

Likes

- Tyrese Maxey recognized that the ball was rolling all the way down the floor with an official in pursuit after Reggie Jackson chucked it off the backboard following a call for a timeout. Maxey promptly ran after the ball and tossed it to the referee, saving them a jog down the court. That was genuinely nice.

- Justin Edwards was the best thing to come out of this game for Philadelphia. He played legitimately well in significant minutes. The swing side of the court for him will always be offense, but he showed impressive polish in almost everything he did on that end. The shooting stroke was smooth and repeatable. He had touch in the in-between game, pulling up comfortably for a midrange jumper. Edwards wasn't intimidated by the Thunder's presence inside, finding a crease to attack the left side of the glass off the dribble. Excellent stuff from the rookie. 

Dislikes

- The only thing about the available players I can reasonably criticize is that there was not a ton of pride manifesting on the court after Oklahoma City took its grip on this game. The mistakes were pretty fundamental and screamed effort and attention. The Thunder out-hustled them to long rebounds, which led to cuts and open threes. They back-cut the Sixers off the ball to oblivion, throwing home dunks and scoring easy layups.

There's a difference between that and discipline. I expect clunkiness to lead to turnovers because this crew has not played real time together. I expect you to get stuffed often because the opposition's baseline on defense is still far higher than yours. I expect jumping at shot fakes and committing fouls. Everyone in attendance demands effort and pride. To that end, the one thing the Sixers did really well was stay connected enough to force turnovers. The Thunder were understandably very sloppy, and the Sixers preyed on that.

- But, Jackson, one of the veterans of the team, frankly looked like he was being dragged away from a binge-worthy television show for this game. You could see where his head was before tip-off, "I don't want to be here" all but printed across his face when he was introduced as a starter. He registered one shot attempt in the first half, and his passes were especially inaccurate. He threw the ball everywhere except where his teammates were expecting it, and it cost them decent looks because they had to spend time fumbling it or reeling it in. Just a zombie effort.

Spare thoughts

- I don't know that any guard in NBA history has made a 30-point game look easier than Shai Gilgeous-Alexander did in this one. He cut through the Sixers like a hot knife goes through butter and did so entirely on autopilot.

The Sixers (15-23) will host the New York Knicks (26-15) on Wednesday. Tip-off is scheduled for 7 p.m., Eastern time. You can catch the game on ESPN.