By Josh Liddick, Sports Talk Philly editor 
A win for the Sixers on Sunday night would put the most disappointing week of the season so far to rest on a high note.
Philly is riding a three-game losing streak as they head to the SmoothieKing Center on Sunday to face the New Orleans Pelicans.
The Sixers lost by 14 to a lackluster Phoenix Suns team that saw their star guard Devin Booker put 46 points on the board.
The Sixers fell to the Lakers by three points on Thursday night when Lonzo Ball dished a pass to the outside key with Brandon Ingram draining a go-ahead three pointer with seven tenths of a second left on the clock.
And then, as the Sixers clung to a slim lead late, Robert Covington went down hard with a back injury and allowed the Cleveland Cavaliers to sneak ahead and win by seven points.
The Sixers will have their work cut out for them as the Pelicans present a very solid front court, but winning on the road to go back to two games above .500 is not impossible.
Boogie vs. Biid
The storyline of this matchup is by far putting Joel Embiid up against Pelicans' center DeMarcus Cousins.
In 21 games this season, No. 21 is averaging 23.5 points, 11.1 rebounds, 3.2 assists, and nearly two blocks per game for the Sixers. The Sixers kept Embiid out of Saturday night's matchup with the Cavs due to rest for the back-to-back game, and quite frankly the team would be lost without Embiid in the lineup, when they matchup with Cousins and Anthony Davis.
The Pelicans are one of those rare teams in the NFL nowadays with their primary players being their bigmen. You could almost put the Sixers in that same category, where Embiid is joined by Ben Simmons, although Anthony Davis doesn't play point guard like Simmons does.
Cousins has played all 26 games for New Orleans this season, and has been one of the league's most efficient scorers.
Cousins is averaging 26.3 points, 12.6 rebounds, 5.1 assists, 1.6 blocks, and 1.6 steals so far.
The last time these two players faced off was on December 26 of last year, when Cousins was still on the Sacramento Kings.
Embiid finished with 25 points, eight rebounds, two steals, and two blocks in 29 minutes, while Cousins put together a dominant fourth quarter, finishing with 30 points, seven boards, five assists, three steals, and two blocks.
Needless to say, a healthy Embiid and Cousins is going to be one heck of a matchup, and Sunday night should be a special night for these two, especially on how good they have both been all season long.
The bench needs to get better
I'm really not sure what else needs to be done in order for this Sixers bench to become more productive.
Does Bryan Colangelo need to pull some strings to trade some players to get better compliments for a brilliant Sixers starting five? Or does the coaching staff need to figure out better game-plans to get the most productivity out of the second and third teams?
Whatever it is, the Sixers have a dilemma on their hands because whatever is going on now, it really isn't working at all.
Against the Lakers on Thursday night in Philly, the Sixers got bench scoring from literally one player in Richaun Holmes. The bench went 5-for-16 from the field with Holmes getting all 13 points.
On Saturday night, it would've been the same story if Colangelo didn't trade for Trevor Booker on Thursday afternoon. Booker, acquired from Brooklyn for Jahlil Okafor, made his debut in Cleveland and had 12 points and eight rebounds on 4-of-6 shooting.
Holmes added 13 points, but not one other Sixers player on the bench had a field goal. Nothing was working, and quite frankly, nothing will ever work if there aren't changes that will be made.
Jerryd Bayless and Timothé Luwawu-Cabarrot combined to go 0-for-8 from the field and 0-for-7 from three in a combined 37 minutes on the floor. That's just an unacceptable use of floor time.
In four games in December so far, TLC is averaging three points, two rebounds, and 1.5 assists in 17 minutes a game.
But even more dismal than those numbers, is his field-goal percentage, averaging 29.4-percent from the field in four games this month.
The Sixers are just lacking on their bench performance, and injuries aren't really helping that much. TJ McConnell has seen the bench more than the court recently due to his shoulder injury, so the hustle off the bench just hasn't been there.
Maybe the Sixers can string something together and improve, and maybe Trevor Booker will provide enough quality minutes to improve an unimpressive bench, but something indeed needs to be done.
Robert Covington out for Sunday's game
In an unsurprising move, the Sixers will be without the services of small forward Robert Covington on Sunday night after he suffered a back injury at the end of Saturday's game when he dived into the bench in order to save a ball from going out of bounds.
CT Scan and X-rays were negative on Robert Covington’s lower-back contusion. The #Sixers SF is out tonight and doubtful for Tuesday’s game against the #Timberwolves.
— Keith Pompey (@PompeyOnSixers) December 10, 2017
When the bench doesn't play well, the Sixers often leans on Covington to get them out of holes, especially from long range. Unfortunately, Covington hasn't been exactly been reliable either.
But in his last five games, we've seen the real Covington come back to Philadelphia. Covington is averaging 16.8 points and is shooting 43.7-percent from three in those last five games.
No Covington means the Sixers have even less options to go to in terms of shooting the ball effectively.
| Matchup Preview | December 10, 2017 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Philadelphia 76ers (13-12) |
New Orleans Pelicans (13-13) |
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Broadcast Information
Where: SmoothieKing Center
When: 7 p.m. ET
Watch: NBC Sports Philly+
Listen: 97.5 The Fanatic
