In one of their worst efforts of the season, the 76ers looked awful on both ends of the court in a 104-85 loss to the Golden State Warriors, who got 22 points and seven assists from Jason Richardson.
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"Chris is a five-time All-Star. You have to be fair," 76ers coach Jim O'Brien said. "Here is a guy that is thrown into the mix after changing coasts, going from a completely different system, and is then asked to play seven games in 10 days with very little practice. I believe that Chris is a very confident guy and will find his stride real soon."
Webber did not find his stride in this game as he encountered early foul trouble and never got untracked. He scored eight points - all in the first half - on 3-of-12 shooting.
After missing a shot in the third quarter, Webber heard boos as he ran back on defense. He left the locker room without speaking to reporters.
"I've been in Philadelphia nine years and I've seen way worse that," Allen Iverson said. "It didn't bother me when I was getting booed. That's just how it is. This is Philadelphia. This is as real as it gets. It doesn't get any harder than this. It doesn't get no worse that this.
"This is the toughest place in the world to play in. If you can deal with it, then you can deal with it playing somewhere else. If you didn't have anything negative surrounding you wherever you've been before you came here, you've got a lot of growing up - fast - because it's going to come right at you."
Webber should not have been singled out. The Sixers again displayed a porous defense that surrendered 24 fast-break points, allowed Mike Dunleavy and Mickael Pietrus to become scorers and the Warriors to turn a three-point halftime lead into a rout.
"We can't win any basketball games if we don't play defense," Iverson said. "That's what it comes down to, honestly. We can't stop anybody, we haven't been doing it. If we can't stop anybody in this league, then we'll struggle like we've been doing."
"This was a very lethargic and poor effort from our team," said O'Brien, whose club fell 2 1/2 games behind idle first-place Boston. "Tonight, we certainly didn't look like we had any urgency about us. Why that is, I could offer up any number of reasons. We have to make sure we have a sense of urgency by the time we hit the court Friday."
On offense, Iverson committed a career-high 12 turnovers - two shy of the NBA record - and the Sixers managed just 35 points in the second half.
"I don't know how it would have gone if I didn't turn the ball over as much as I did," Iverson said. "I think that I turned it over five times in the first half. So it was a bad game for me from the beginning."
Philadelphia shot just 37.5 percent (30-of-80) from the field, committed 25 turnovers and had just three players in double figures. Iverson scored 33 points, matching the combined total of the other starters.
Dunleavy scored 21 points, Troy Murphy added 17 and Pietrus 14 for the Warriors, who improved to 3-2 on their eight-game road trip.
"We just went out there and played hard," Richardson said. "Right now, we're the spoilers. We just want to go out there against the other teams that are in a playoff race and try to mess up their playoff position. All we can do is try to play hard for the rest of the season."
Golden State began the third quarter with an 11-2 run fueled by five points from Richardson, opening a 64-52 lead. The boos began shortly thereafter.
"I told (Webber) what to expect," guard Allen Iverson said. "I let him know that it is going to be tough and that people expect you to be the Chris Webber you've been throughout your whole career. You could play five or six good games. The first one where you don't play well, they'll get on you. I'm not saying anything negative about the people here. It's just a basketball town. They love their basketball and they want us to win and play well."
The Warriors took a 76-67 advantage into the final period and only widened it. In a 10-2 burst, Dunleavy made a 3-pointer and was fouled missing one, building the margin to 90-73 with 8:15 to go. Richardson hit a three-pointer with 3:32 left in the final quarter to Golden State a 20 point lead, their largest of the game.
