National Media Rips Sixers' Brett Brown After Three-Game Road Skid

Playing on the road has been a nightmare for the Philadelphia 76ers this season. As a historically lopsided team when it comes to playing at home versus playing away from South Philly, the Sixers have undoubtedly been a confusing bunch this season.

At home, they look like legitimate NBA Finals contenders. While away, they are slightly worse than a middle of the pack program. Anytime the Sixers have consecutive road games, there's always the expectation of them being defeated more often than not.

This recent road trip hasn't been any different. Last Thursday, the Sixers kicked the tires on a four-game road stint beginning in Atlanta against the Hawks. Despite the Hawks being at the bottom of the Eastern Conference, they still took care of the Sixers.

On Saturday, Philly took its second and final trip to Boston to match up with the Celtics for the fourth time. During the previous three games against Boston this year, the Sixers won convincingly. This time around, though, the situation was much different.

The Celtics dominated the Sixers even without their star point guard, Kemba Walker, on the floor. Then, the Sixers traveled to Miami on Monday with a shot at redemption. Once again, Philly was defeated. However, this wasn't just some simple loss to a better team. The Sixers were flat-out destroyed on the road in Miami.

Now with three-straight road losses, the Sixers have to travel to Milwaukee on Wednesday for a Thursday night matchup against the Bucks. And lately, the national media has lost its faith in Philadelphia, who has been called one of, if not, the most disappointing team in basketball through the first half of the 2019-2020 season.

Why is that? Is it the awkward fit of Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons, who tend to struggle to share the floor together? Perhaps, Al Horford doesn't belong on the court alongside those guys either. Maybe it's the lack of three-point shooters on their squad. All of the above can be true -- but the national media recently placed the blame on one factor. In the eyes of the talk show personalities, Sixers' head coach Brett Brown is the problem.

After the Sixers got blown out by Miami on Monday, Brett Brown took a lot of heat on Tuesday for the never-ending road struggles for this season's 76ers. While Sixers players have taken the blame themselves in the past by pointing out a lack of accountability and calling each other soft -- very rarely does anybody beyond the fan base say something negative about the head coach.

Not this time, though. On ESPN's First Take, Stephen A. Smith had to make a few comments he probably wished he could keep. As he respects the Sixers' coach, Smith called it how he sees it and labeled Brown as the issue on Tuesday.

"The problem is their coach," Smith said when the topic of the Sixers' struggles came up on Tuesday. "I do not want this man fired. He's a good man, I think he's a good coach, but he will never be [called] a great coach. This team is underachieving, and I'm putting it right at his doorsteps."

During his assessment of Brett Brown this season, Stephen A. made it a point that Brown hasn't really helped the stars that come in to do any better. His two examples were Jimmy Butler and Al Horford. Butler came to Philly last season and did some nice things, but he wasn't playing anywhere near the level he is currently playing in Miami.

And as for Horford, he was an All-Star caliber player just last season with the Boston Celtics. In Philly, however, Horford has looked out of place, uninspired, and even washed up at times. Many don't know whether Horford is genuinely out of place on the Sixers, or if he aged a few years over the summer.

"I'm looking at the personnel and saying, 'okay, you have to adjust accordingly and play a different brand of basketball,' Smith explained. "I don't see that with Brett Brown. I don't see somebody that's galvanizing the troops. I don't see a coach that has his team showing up on the road -- they got an awful record on the road. I don't see an elevated level of play. As a coach, you have to be able to maximize what you've got to work with -- I don't see him doing that."

First Take wasn't the only show to criticize the Sixers' head coach on Tuesday, either. Jay Williams and Matt Barnes talked Sixers on ESPN's Get Up, and just like Stephen A. Smith, they both offered a piece of their minds on Philly's leader.

"People aren't paying attention to Brett Brown as much as maybe we think," Williams suggested. "I see guys rolling their eyes, and I see guys doing little hand things towards Brett Brown. I think he's starting to lose the ear of a lot of players. I think he's a good coach, but I don't think he's the right coach for this team."

Next to Jay Williams was Matt Barnes, who tends to agree with the notion that Brown's message to his team is starting to grow stale. "I think it starts at the top with leadership, they don't respect Brett Brown anymore," Barnes claimed. "Once you lose the locker room, that's obviously a problem."

Brett Brown has been steering the Sixers' ship since the 2013 NBA season. While he has coached through some putrid seasons, the Sixers gave Brown a real chance to lead the franchise after so many years of tanking and rebuilding.

Over the last two seasons, the Sixers have made it to the second round of the playoffs, but they haven't been able to advance beyond that. This year, Brown set expectations quite high for his team as he teased the idea that they were gunning for the East's top seed. At this point, it's obvious those expectations are out of reach.

The chances of Brett Brown losing his job this season are pretty slim. However, if he doesn't figure out a way to get it right at some point this year, there could be a chance the franchise will move on and find somebody else to give these guys a fresh start.

Justin Grasso covers the Philadelphia 76ers for Sports Illustrated. You can follow him on Twitter: @JGrasso_