Five quick thoughts on Philly's 105-104 loss

Baseline blunders. Ben Simmons committed four turnovers against Houston. That's not an egregious number, but a couple of the miscues were alarming. On at least two occasions Simmons drove into the paint and then decided to turn around at the baseline and pass inside. The only problem was he decided this only once he reached baseline and there was no one trailing him and he threw it directly to the opposing team. He needs to have a plan and know where the ball is going if he's going to make those kinds of moves.

Anderson aggression. Brett Brown said we would be seeing more of Justin Anderson with Markelle Fultz being sidelined, and we did. There are going to be nights when Brown will turn to Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot, but when he needs the defense, he'll go with Anderson. Anderson is improving with every chance he gets, he's rebounding, hitting threes, and deflecting to create steals. He needs to continue to work on not fouling, but he came out aggressive, especially after timeouts and dead ball situations.

Fouling around. Brown said the first thing he would look at after the game was the number of fouls the Sixers committed. The team total wasn't as bad as it was is some of the other games, but looking at the stat sheet at the end of the third quarter was troublesome. Joel Embiid had three fouls before the end of the opening frame. That limited the amount of time the big man could help the team through the rest of the game. He's such an important piece of the Sixers puzzle, he'll need to keep the fouls to a minimum so he can be effective for longer stretches.

Redemption. The first half was rough for Amir Johnson. Defensively he was frustrated and visibly upset by many of his missed assignments. But in the third, he came out looking to make up for his early mistakes. He was booed by the Philly crowd when he checked in, but he didn't let that deter him. He dove for a loose ball, clamped down on defense, and scored in transition.

Silent assassin. Robert Covington has maybe benefited more than anyone by the Sixers new-look roster. The space created by the weapons on the Sixers roster leaves Covington open for more shots than he's ever had. Covington finished with 20 points, but not all were from the three-point line. He drove, scored in transition, and in addition he is the Sixers best defender. Thing about Covington is that his contribution is quiet and gradual, making him even more dangerous.