Cooney: Sixers' 0-1 comes with hope this time

WEDNESDAY NIGHT, the atmosphere at the Wells Fargo Center was unlike it has been for any other 76ers game in the Brett Brown era.

Maybe for the first time, a sellout crowd was there to see his team, not a visiting superstar. The spectators were there to witness the debuts of Joel Embiid and Dario Saric, to affirm their trust in The Process and to witness the first major step in a rebuilding project that still is in its infancy but seems to have serious growth potential.

Embiid wowed with his 20 points in 22 minutes, his proclamation to anyone within shouting distance that he couldn't be covered and his interaction with the crowd during its "Trust the process" and "M-V-P" chants.

Saric struggled in his first NBA game, making just two of his 12 shots. But he hustled his way to seven rebounds and demonstrated the toughness that will almost certainly make him a crowd favorite.

The Sixers fought. Hard. And they possessed a four-point lead with 4 1/2 minutes to go in the game, and the Thunder didn't take the lead for good until the 35-second mark.

The frenzied crowd roared during the ensuring timeout, creating a very unfamiliar environment.

But as Brown had his team gathered around him, trying to diagram plays to get the team's first win - something that didn't happen until the 19th game last season - familiarity set in for the coach.

The five players he put on the floor to end the game were Embiid, Saric, Sergio Rodriguez, Gerald Henderson and Robert Covington. The first two were playing their initial game in the NBA. Rodriguez hadn't been in the NBA since 2010 and Henderson, in his first season with the Sixers, was limited during the preseason with a hip injury. Covington has been with Brown the past few seasons, been in this situation before, but never with those other four players.

Much has been made by fans as to Brown's play-calling down the stretch in close games. In reality, though, Wednesday's finish was kind of a microcosm as to what the coach has been facing during his time here.

Yes, getting the ball to Embiid each and every time down the floor in the final couple of minutes seemed a no-brainer, and that was mostly what the coach wanted to do. After all, it was the first time Brown has had a true go-to player in whose hands the ball could be placed and good fortune would be more likely than not.

Embiid was inserted with 4:29 to go and the Sixers holding a one-point lead. He hit a 14-footer for a three-point lead. He later made a couple of foul shots and then a 13-footer with 50 seconds to go to tie the game. And while Embiid was, and should have been, the central figure of the team's offense down the stretch, there was still the matter of five guys who had never been in this situation, not having been on the floor together before Wednesday.

In the past during close games, Brown was forced to send out strangers to try to pull out wins. Point guards who had signed with the team just days before were running the show. Players who barely knew one another, let alone any offensive schemes or sets, were asked to close out close games. Although Embiid's hulking, 7-2 frame was on the floor at the end Wednesday, it just wasn't enough.

"You have a target," Brown said of Embiid. "We tried to get the ball to him a lot. I think toward the end, there were some quick shots that others took that if you had them back you probably could have been better organized. By and large, to have somebody like Joel where the mystery is solved of what do you do, you give him the ball as much as you can."

To say the coach can't close out games really isn't fair. His has been a fight with limited ammunition or misfiring weapons. While the 103-97 loss Wednesday might have added fuel to a simmering fire for doubters, there was a different feel to this one. Pretty soon Brown will be able to play with a full deck, which is why this loss didn't parallel the ones from years before.

"You sting because, ultimately, we lost the game," Brown said. "We have gone through 52 players (in his 247 games). Count them. Fifty-two players we've put on the floor. Only 11 are still in the league. We've gone through 14 point guards. Count 'em. Fourteen. And two of them, making it 16, are in my locker room (Sergio Rodriguez and T.J. McConnell). I go in there and look at guys that we can touch and they are ours. Embiid and Saric and Ben (Simmons) is in there, and he's upset that we lost. I see the improvement of some of our guys.

"So from that perspective we lost, but I'm seeing something that's got a chance to grow and we can all wrap our arms around. You can touch stuff that you think has the ability to improve. And on Opening Night, to do some of the things that we did with those people I just said, it does feel a little bit different on Opening Night, albeit a loss."

It's safe to say it's going to be a lot different, particularly at the end of games where a blueprint now can finally start being formed.

@BobCooney76

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