By Josh Liddick, Sports Talk Philly Staff
The Philadelphia 76ers visited the Philips Arena in Atlanta to take on the Eastern Conference's current fourth seed, the Hawks. The Sixers were in search of their 15th win of the season and hopefully their ninth win in their last 11 games.
The game was pretty close during the opening two quarters, with a tie game after the first and the Hawks with a 62-54 lead going into the locker room for halftime.
The Sixers had to make do without the presence of Joel Embiid both offensively and defensively, as Embiid missed the start due to not being able to play back-to-back games this season.
Insert Jahlil Okafor into the equation for the Sixers and you get 11 points, four rebounds, a steal, an assist, and three blocks for an overall quality night from the floor.
T.J. McConnell dazzled for the Sixers with eight points, 11 assists, and three steals. It was McConnell's fifth career game with assists in double digits, second on the year.
Ersan Ilyasova paced the team with 21 points, while going 3-of-6 from long range. Ilyasova has scored in double-digits now 36 out of the 39 games he has played in a Sixers uniform this season.
Robert Covington also went 3-0f-6 from three and contributed 15 points and 10 boards. It was Ro-Co's 15th double-double of his career, and now fifth on the year so far.
Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot and Gerald Henderson each put up 10 points for the Sixers on the night.
As for the Atlanta Hawks, it was pretty difficult to stop Paul Millsap, who had 22 points, 10 boards, an assist, a steal, and two blocks on the night.
Kent Bazemore had 16 points, while Dwight Howard had an excellent night with 13 points and 15 rebounds.
Dennis Schroder had 15 points for the Hawks, and dished out nine assists in the process.
The Sixers were unable to play as tough as they would've liked to in the latter portions of the ballgame, and a lack of Embiid definitely played a big role in the team's confidence to finish out the game strong against a tough team on the road.
At the end of the day, turnovers is often an aspect of the game that kills a team, and for the Sixers, 21 of them is never a good situation to get yourself in. The Hawks played a little more conservative with the basketball, as they only had 13 turnovers in the entirety of the game.
The Sixers' three game winning streak was snapped with the defeat, as they will look to get their winning ways back up to par, hopefully with Joel Embiid back in the lineup, as the Sixers host the Los Angeles Clippers on Tuesday, January 24, at 7 p.m. ET.
