The Sixers know they are at an inflection point following dreadful loss to Pelicans

NEW ORLEANS — Bryce McGowens extended his right arm for the “ice in his veins” celebration directly in front of the 76ers’ bench, after draining a corner three-pointer as part of the Pelicans’ long-range onslaught.

New Orleans looked like the playoff contender with fresh legs Saturday night at the Smoothie King Center, not the Western Conference bottom-dweller playing short-handed on the second night of a back-to-back. The Pelicans bulldozed the Sixers in the second half of an eventual 126-111 result, handing them their fourth consecutive loss and perhaps their most troubling defeat of the season.

That puts the 30-26 Sixers at an inflection point, and they know it.

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Coach Nick Nurse initially called it the “toughest moment of the season, for sure. All year. Without question” during his postgame news conference. And though the visitors’ locker room was not overly tense, panicked, or dejected, veteran wing Kelly Oubre Jr. also offered a blunt assessment of the state of his team and this suddenly teetering season with 26 regular-season games to play.

“I don’t think anything’s funny right now. I don’t think anything is fun,” said Oubre, the New Orleans native who scored 25 points Saturday. “I just hope that we get mad. I think we’ll play better if we’re mad. We’ll play better if we’re desperate.

“I think we’re a little too entitled right now. Teams aren’t going to roll over and let us win any of those games. … We’ve got to whoop them the same way people come into our house and whoop us.”

Perhaps most frustrating for the Sixers is that this skid comes on the heels of what Nurse believes was his team’s best stretch this season — even after starting wing Paul George was abruptly suspended for 25 games for violating the NBA’s anti-drug policy.

The Sixers headed West on Feb. 1 for a five-game road trip, and won three of their first four matchups. Starting forward Dominick Barlow said “the vibes were great” throughout that jaunt, even with the trade deadline — and the emotional departure of second-year guard Jared McCain — plopped in the middle.

Yet after a Feb. 8 victory at the Phoenix Suns, the Sixers were blown out at the Portland Trail Blazers and at home against the rival New York Knicks. In their first game after the All-Star break, the Sixers lost to an Atlanta Hawks team that has overhauled its roster and is fighting for a spot in the play-in tournament. Then came Saturday’s defeat to a Pelicans team that entered the game with a 15-42 record, at a rest disadvantage — and set to start veteran center DeAndre Jordan, who had not played since Oct. 29, in a jumbo lineup.

About 90 minutes before tipoff, Nurse vocalized the Sixers’ need to halt this “hiccup.” He also was honest about his team’s inconsistency throughout the season, that “we can play at the highest levels. We can play at the lowest levels” regardless of opponent.

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“It wouldn’t matter where we were or who we were playing,” Nurse said. “ … We’ve got to get ourselves corrected.”

It would be easy to blame this slide solely on the absence of former MVP Joel Embiid, who has missed all four games with knee and shin issues after a dominant month-plus stretch. These Sixers have resembled the team that rapidly torpedoed when Embiid and George were sidelined for the bulk of last season, with All-Star point guard Tyrese Maxey manufacturing points (and playing tons of minutes) but struggling with efficiency while getting swarmed defensively. Maxey totaled 27 points, seven assists, and five steals Saturday, but went 2-of-11 from three-point range and 9-of-23 overall from the floor.

And Saturday night, the 2025-26 Sixers’ most glaring problem arose again.

They surrendered 40 points during a dreadful third quarter, swiftly reversing an 11-point advantage early in the frame into an eight-point hole. That deficit continued to balloon to 21 points in the final period, thanks to the Pelicans’ 12-of-20 three-point barrage after the break. The Sixers made only three of their 24 long-range attempts in the second half, providing New Orleans with consistent opportunities to push the ball off misses, penetrate into the lane, and kick out to open shooters.

“We just didn’t make any of them, and they made them all,” Nurse said, “It really flipped the game really quickly, and we just could never really get back on track.”

The Sixers exited the All-Star break with a strength of schedule that ranked 23rd out of the NBA’s 30 teams, per Tankathon. That theoretically should prove beneficial in the Eastern Conference postseason race, where the Sixers enter Sunday in danger of slipping into play-in territory. They were percentage points ahead of the seventh-place Miami Heat (31-27), and a half-game up on the eighth-place Orlando Magic (29-26).

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Following Wednesday’s practice, Maxey emphasized that the regular season’s home stretch is when playoff teams “take advantage of whoever they’re playing against.”

“If it’s a team that’s at the bottom of the standings,” Maxey added, “playoff teams normally go out there and handle their business professionally. … It’s time to buckle down. It’s time to go out here and increase our seed, increase the way we’re playing and figure it out, and get ready for this postseason run.”

After Saturday’s failure in that exact scenario, Maxey understood why a reporter circled those words back to him. He stressed that the Sixers must stick together and are the only ones who “can climb ourselves out” of this four-game slump. Barlow cautioned against overreacting, yet acknowledged that “getting a win after each loss becomes harder and harder.” Nurse audibly exhaled as he left the room housing his postgame news conference.

The beauty (and curse) of the NBA schedule? The Sixers play again Sunday night at the Minnesota Timberwolves, before a Tuesday game against an Indiana Pacers team with the worst record in the Eastern Conference (15-42).

Oubre hopes that, for those matchups, his team plays mad.

“Now is the time to not make any more excuses,” he said. “ … It’s just do-or-die time. It’s time for us to muscle up, put our hard hats on, and actually learn how to win NBA games — and do it efficiently and consistently.”