LOS ANGELES, CA — Whenever it feels like the Sixers have reached rock bottom, they find a new low. On Friday night in Los Angeles, they sunk to 1-7, pitting them with the worst record in the entire NBA (tied with the Utah Jazz).
During the Sixers' latest loss — a 116-106 defeat at the hands of the Los Angeles Lakers — head coach Nick Nurse tried every trick in the book, shaking up his rotation in several respects as he looked for a spark. In his third game of the season, Paul George made smarter decisions and took care of the ball, but could not buy a bucket.
After Nurse spoke to media immediately following the game, George spoke at his locker. A host of quotes from Nurse on his rotation adjustments and more changes he could make down the line, and from George on his shaky performance and continued reintegration with the team…
• Nurse on his decision to remove Eric Gordon from the rotation and give significant minutes to rookie Jared McCain:
"First of all, I wanted to give Jared a good look. I felt early that we needed to try to balance some of our energy guys with some of the veteran guys. That was part of it… [McCain] gives you a little better spacing than having two slashing wings at the same time… That won't be a permanent thing or anything, just trying to shake it up a little bit."
• Nurse on whether or not he is comfortable using McCain as a point guard (McCain opened the fourth quarter against the Lakers as the team's only guard), particularly as he tries to keep 38-year-old Kyle Lowry at a reasonable minutes total:
"Yeah. I'll tell you why we did it tonight: I thought Kyle was playing a lot. We gave Reggie [Jackson] some minutes there. We were just trying to figure out another way to get some shooting out there. Let [George] handle the ball, and we're running stuff for other people, but he was involved in some 'combo' actions… It's looking at it and thinking what we can do to play a little bit better and keep some guys out there and not necessarily go with a traditional lineup and see if it works."
• Nurse on the offensive performance of George, who scored just nine points and made only four of his 13 shot attempts:
"Well, he obviously had a tough night. I thought he got some decent looks, I thought he had some drives. I thought he got roughed around quite a bit. I don't know if he shot a free throw — he shot two free throws — I thought he could have probably gotten to the line a few more times there. Passed the ball pretty good again, I think he does still create offense for other people. But I think he's still a little rusty. I think he'd probably say that himself."
• George, who had 10 turnovers across his first two games, on whether his eight-assist, zero-turnover performance is an indicator he is getting used to playing with a new group:
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Especially with [Tyrese Maxey] going out and just how teams are going to guard me, I mean, I know it's gonna be a lot of loading up and traps and blitzes and that type of stuff. Tonight was the best I felt with just being myself. I felt back to normal in terms of rhythm. I know shots didn't go down, but I'm not really too concerned on that. I think more so was getting in the right spots, being able to play-make, create, that's really what I wanted to excel in. I know the shot-making will come. It was more so just getting back to handling the ball and creating [advantages] with my ball-handling. I thought tonight was a great showing for that. Now, [I'll] start to take the next step of putting it all together and being back to isolation scoring and making big shots and getting to my spots."
• At the end of this answer, George quips about a frustrating aspect of his return:
"I'm just trying to put it all together while being under minutes restrictions, [playing] in six-minute spurts. You know, it's challenging. You get going and you get subbed out and you have to try to find it again. Just trying to put it all together."
• Does George know when his minutes restrictions will be lifted?
"They're going up as the games go. I probably won't be at normal minutes for probably another couple games, but they're going up."
To end things on a lighter note…
• McCain, a California native, on an interaction he had with LeBron James during the game:
"He actually recognized my parents in the crowd. He was like, 'I see them over there.' He said, 'Keep going.' It's just cool to see someone who — again, each game is like someone I've watched for so long. Especially him… I feel like I say it every single game: every game is like a dream come true. Obviously, we're trying to win every game and every possession, we're trying to get a stop. But when you really sit back and look back — five years ago, what would I have thought? It's insane. I'm a Philadelphia 76er, I'm in the NBA, and I'm on a possession guarding LeBron James. If I would have told that to my freshman year of high school self, I wouldn't have believed [myself]."
MORE: Lakers 116, Sixers 106
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