76ers Disappointed as In-Season Tournament Elimination is Likely

The 76ers share their thoughts on their potential elimination.

On Tuesday night, the Philadelphia 76ers lost to the Cleveland Cavaliers in the final match of the NBA's In-Season tournament, finishing the group stage with a record of 2-2.

With this defeat, the Indiana Pacers claimed the top spot in Group A, as they took down the Atlanta Hawks, 157-152, on Tuesday night. While the Pacers have the group, Philadelphia's chance of advancing are slim, but not gone, as they can still advance as a wild card as a result of different outcomes elsewhere in the other groups.

Given the potential, maybe even likely elimination, different members of the team had different things to say about the loss on Tuesday night and the repercussions.

Veteran Tobias Harris was frustrated with the elimination as he sees the in-season tournament as a source of competition for the team, which could potentially come in handy during the playoffs.

"Say what you want about the In-Season Tournament, but it is for players, we are competitive," said Harris, "It's more than a regular season game. Those types of games, they get you ready for playoff basketball, those types of environments."

Harris certainly isn't wrong about the playoff feeling of the in-season tournament matches, as none of their group stage games finished with a point differential of more than ten points, with Tuesday night's overtime shootout including 11 ties and 13 lead changes.

Apart from the experience in high-intensity games, the 31-year-old feels that the In-Season Tournament is a great way for teams to let the league know who they are.

"Those things matter in the grand scheme of things," explained Harris, "Just having that competitive nature, setting the tone for the year, or for what kind of team you are..."

Harris wasn't the only member of the Sixers to be disappointed by the potential elimination, as head coach Nick Nurse shared the feeling, especially given his team's desire to advance.

"We're disappointed, we stated right from the beginning of this thing that we thought it was a cool idea, our guys talked a lot about wanting to advance in the tournament, I guess we're not going to," said Nurse.

The Sixers' head coach doesn't want his team to sulk in the potential elimination, rather finding it important to look for potential bright sides.

"We're going to have to find a positive out of there," explained Nurse, "There's got to be one, there's got to be a positive of not being able to play, and we can focus on our regular season and all that kind of stuff."

While the 53-year-old tries to look for a positive in the elimination, the same can't be said for Patrick Beverly, who feels that there aren't any positives in losing these kind of games, especially given his desire to advance in the competition.

"Nah, never a silver lining when you lose, I'm mad as [expletive], I wanted to go to Vegas," stated Beverly.

While his head coach and teammates are disappointed by the loss, Joel Embiid is treating Tuesday night's loss just as any other.

"No, we just lost a game, it's the same thing as any loss, we want to win every game," said Embiid, "Sure it's about a tournament, but I want to win every game. Every game is important to me."