In one of the weirder games they have played during the 2025-26 season, the Sixers lost to the lowly Pelicans on the second night of their back-to-back in New Orleans on Saturday night, falling, 126-111, to one of the NBA's worst teams. Even with Joel Embiid sidelined, what should have been an easy Sixers victory turned into yet another dispiriting loss.

The Sixers led for most of the first half, with Kelly Oubre Jr. and VJ Edgecombe providing the efficient doses of scoring that Tyrese Maxey once again struggled to turn in despite giving the Sixers some production elsewhere. Then came yet another disastrous third quarter; the Sixers surrendered 40 points to the Pelicans in the first 12 minutes out of halftime to dig themselves a hole. The fourth quarter might have been even worse, as they showed none of the fight necessary to come back. This second half was quite possibly the worst half of basketball the Sixers have played all year given the context.

Maxey's continued inefficiency has remained an issue, and without their two highest-paid players there is just too much on the 25-year-old's plate right now. This team, which thrived despite dealing with difficult circumstances earlier in the season, now looks capable of losing to anybody if a few things do not break their way. Their lack of three-point shooting has been an issue for weeks, and New Orleans found a way to take advantage of it on Saturday.

Takeaways from a bizarre night of basketball:

Sixers go up against mega ball

There is going small, there is going big... and there is what the Pelicans did on Saturday night. Despite having a promising rookie point guard in Jeremiah Fears, New Orleans has recently leaned into using bruising star forward Zion Williamson, one of the heaviest players in the NBA, as a jumbo ball-handler. That allows them to be big across the board, with sturdy and versatile wings Herb Jones, Saddiq Bey and Trey Murphy III slotting in between Williamson and rookie center Derik Queen. With Murphy sidelined on Saturday, the logical move for New Orleans would have been to slide Fears into the starting lineup and go with an opening unit that was still quite big, even if more conventional.

Instead, of all seven options to choose from, Pelicans head coach James Borrego went with... old friend DeAndre Jordan, sliding Queen down to the four and – at the cost of their own offensive spacing – giving the Sixers some difficult decisions to make attacking the glass and matching up defensively. Jordan had not played since October, he was coming off 52 consecutive DNPs.

Andre Drummond once again filled in for Embiid, but Dominick Barlow next to him was the ideal matchup for Williamson; the 22-year-old had the best chance of handling Williamson's unusual blend of power and explosiveness. But putting Barlow on Williamson would force Oubre to slide all the way up to Queen, who could bully him in the post, or Jordan, who could easily dominate him as a rebounder.

Sixers head coach Nick Nurse ultimately elected to put Oubre on the rookie Queen, likely banking on the fact that in the short stints in which the Pelicans used this massive lineup, they would have such little shooting on the floor that Oubre's teammates could help if Queen posted up. It enabled Barlow to the Williamson assignment; Williamson would have had a much easier time exploiting a mismatch as a driver than Queen would have being utilized out of the post.

It took New Orleans three minutes to score, but once the Pelicans broke the seal they were able to get going, with a pair of early threes from Bey leading them to a lead. In the first six minutes and 30 seconds of the game in which both teams had their starting units on the floor, the Pelicans won the minutes by two points. Mucking it up worked.

The Sixers missed seven of their nine shot attempts in the first five minutes of the game and quite a few of those misfires came on decent-or-better looks. But the Sixers do not have a ton of shooting right now; Maxey is their only clear positive in that respect, while Edgecombe has been up-and-down from long range this season, Oubre is historically more of a volume shooter than an accurate one while Barlow and Drummond only make the occasional corner triple. New Orleans' strategy in those opening minutes was clear: pack the paint and dare the Sixers to make enough jumpers to beat them.

Once both coaches dove into their benches, started mixing things up and the game began to look more like an NBA contest in the year 2026, even these short-handed Sixers were clearly the more talented team. But New Orleans shot well enough on threes – Bey paced them there – to stick right with the Sixers despite that, then found a groove and completely bulldozed the Sixers in the second half. Nurse's team went ice cold, with New Orleans' aim to force them into jump-shooting working out wonderfully. 

Quentin Grimes making progress, but still searching

Early in the season, Quentin Grimes looked like one of the single best bench players in the NBA, likely a candidate to win the NBA Sixth Man of the Year Award. Then December began, and the 25-year-old just about went dormant as a scorer. Grimes is still a valuable piece because he is a reliable and versatile defender who can space the floor, but he was not shooting nearly as well as he typically has, either, even though he should be one of the Sixers' primary counters to any defense packing the paint.

Maxey told a story after the Sixers' practice on Wednesday: during a game in Phoenix shortly before the All-Star break, he was on the bench alongside Grimes, who he has known since they were facing off against each other as teenagers. He implored Grimes to hunt his own shots more often and take them with confidence, particularly from beyond the arc. Grimes likes to work in isolation, but his best moments on this team will come when he is rising up over defenders for three-point shots. Grimes can attack closeouts very well; being more decisive from long range will open up more of those opportunities. Maxey said Grimes should shoot six or seven three-pointers per game.

"Bro, go out there and just do you," Maxey told Grimes that night in Phoenix. "Go hoop."

Grimes scored 14 points on nine shots against the Atlanta Hawks on Thursday night when the Sixers returned to action; it was not a herculean effort on his part but he was one of the only Sixers with any offensive juice in an uninspiring loss.

Grimes said after Thursday's game that Maxey's continued encouragement has made a difference, and he continued creating momentum early on in New Orleans. With the Sixers struggling to score early, Grimes brought an immediate infusion of scoring, posting a game-high nine points in the opening frame, including a pair of triples. Grimes was the one who got the Sixers in a rhythm offensively after a slow start:

Grimes checked in around the same time in the second half with the Sixers once again sputtering offensively, and he once again gave them life with a quick basket. But he could not muster anything beyond that on a night the Sixers really needed more secondary scoring, missing a few great looks from beyond the arc. 

Even with Cam Payne now part of the mix, Jared McCain no longer being in the fold – McCain turned 22 years old and scored a season-high 21 points for the Oklahoma City Thunder on Friday – heightens the importance of the Sixers getting the early-season version of Grimes, not the version of Grimes which has stagnated for multiple months. Paul George's 25-game suspension has arguably been an even stronger impetus for a Grimes resurgence, but it has just not happened yet.

Odds and ends

Two additional notes:

• Jabari Walker has been back in uniform for two games since getting promoted to the standard roster, and both times he has been ahead of Trendon Watford in the rotation. It might be a surprise to some; Watford has more noticeable skills and played very well during the Sixers' lengthy road trip before the break. But Nurse said that during the four games in which Walker was ineligible to dress before putting pen to paper on his new deal, he felt the 23-year-old's absence was felt. Watford, who was not in the rotation at all on Saturday, could be the odd man out if Walker sticks.

• For the first time in his young Sixers tenure, Allentown native Tyrese Martin was active on Saturday. Martin's first Sixers memory, he said this week: going to a preseason game in his hometown and getting a photo with K.J. McDaniels.

Up next: The Sixers will get right back to work on Sunday night, facing a Minnesota Timberwolves team which will be without defensive stalwart Rudy Gobert.