By: Kylan Watson

After beating the Brooklyn Nets on Friday night, the Philadelphia 76ers faced the Atlanta Hawks, one of the hottest teams in the NBA, both teams traded blows in this game but thanks to a scoring explosion from Jalen Johnson the Hawks were able to beat Philly 142-134.

The Sixers were finally able to have a mostly fully loaded roster with the returns of Joel Embiid and VJ Edgecombe who scored the first couple of baskets for the Sixers to open the game. Embiid really was moving well in this game; he scored 18 points in this contest and Philly looks better on both sides of the ball with him on the floor. His gravity created a lot of high percentage shooting opportunities for the Sixers which they could not take advantage of until late in the fourth quarter.

Atlanta on the other hand besides from the three-point line just could not miss in this contest. Jalen Johnson (41 points, grabbed 14 rebounds, and had 7 assists), and Nickeil Alexander-Walker (34 points) combined for 55 of the Hawks 142 points. Alexander-Walker was a stabilizing force for Atlanta in this contest his timely buckets helped the Hawks pull this one out after giving the game away late in the fourth quarter. His effort kept the Hawks alive in this game long enough for Johnson to take over the game and lead his team to victory with a game clinching corner three-pointer. The Hawks were able to wear Philly out with their pace and the Sixers just did not have enough to take this game from them.

Tyrese Maxey also did all he could in this game, he scored 44 points and hit a timely three-pointer to send the game into overtime. Maxey continues to show a scoring prowess that is beyond his years during this season. He has put himself in the MVP conversation early in this season and has continued to show that the future of the Sixers franchise is in safe hands. However, he did miss two free throws that cost Philly this game, which is a rarity for Maxey, but this was a weird game for them overall. They could not make a lot of threes (Made 10/44 three-pointers) in this contest and that cost them this game, if they were able to hit a few more threes, they more than likely win this game.

Atlanta was able to outexecute the Sixers late in this contest, but they should learn from this and attack the basket more when their shots are not falling. They settled for way too many jump shots in the second overtime period when they should have been attacking the basket. Maxey made the adjustment, but his teammates did not and they turned the ball over as well down the stretch which allowed the Hawks to pull this one out.

The Sixers will now prepare to face the Washington Wizards on Tuesday night, another young, athletic, and lengthy team that Philly will have to contend with. They will need to use their ball movement to create high-percentage shooting opportunities and cash in on them. Additionally, they will need to get back on the defensive end and not allow the Wizards to get easy buckets before the defense is set up. Implementing these things into their game plan for Tuesday night will put them in great shape to win their 11^th game of the season.