DALLAS _ The 76ers' woeful road results continued.
Saturday's 109-91 loss to the Dallas Mavericks at the American Airlines Center marked their fifth consecutive setback away from the Wells Fargo Center.
The loss dropped the Sixers to 25-15 overall and 7-13 on the road. The Mavs (24-15) also swept the two-game season series against Philly.
The Sixers were without Joel Embiid, their two-time All-Star who had surgery Friday to repair a torn radial collateral ligament in the ring finger of his left hand. The procedure typically requires a month of healing followed by several weeks of physical therapy, sports medicine specialists say.
On this night, the Sixers had a tough time matching Dallas' intensity in the second half. The Mavs also made 8 of 14 3-pointers after intermission.
Tobias Harris finished with a game-high 20 points in the loss. Al Horford and Josh Richardson added 16 apiece. Ben Simmons had 11 points, 11 assists and four steals. He was held scoreless after intermission.
Meanwhile, Luke Doncic came close to recording his 12th triple-double of the season. The Mavs point guard finished with 19 points, 12 assists and eight rebounds.
Doncic missed the Mavs' 117-98 victory over the Sixers at Wells Fargo Center due to a sprained ankle.
"I shake my head, and I mean it," Sixers coach Brett Brown said before the game when asked how to defend the second-year guard. "We've studied him a lot for obvious reasons. This is what I've learned: He scores in such a variety of ways that if you're not really good in whatever way you chose to do it, the pushing aspects, the ripple effects of any mistakes are highlighted."
Brown knew that, when double-teamed, Doncic passes out of that situation. The point guard also makes "laser passes," according to the coach.
Doncic has been able to excel on most nights regardless of how teams have defended him. Dwight Powell added 19 points and 12 rebounds on Saturday.
The Sixers struggled to make 3-pointers on this night, making just 9 of 37 attempts, or 24.3%.
They started out by missing their first seven 3-point attempts. Their first made 3-pointer was on a 26-footer by Harris with 2 minutes, 14 seconds left in the first quarter. That gave the Sixers a 16-14 advantage.
The Sixers made just 1 of 11 3-pointers, or 9.1%, in the opening quarter. They made just 10 of 31 overall shots while taking a 22-20 advantage into the second quarter.
Philly continued its 3-point woes in the second quarter, making just 1 of 8. However, they made 12 of 24 overall shots in the quarter.
That enabled them to open up a double-digit advantage. They built a 45-33 advantage after Harris' layup with 4:49 before intermission. However, the Mavs went on a run. Powell's dunk with 7:13 left in third quarter gave them a 57-55 advantage.
Dallas went on to lead by as many 10 points before taking a seven-point cushion into the fourth quarter.
The Sixers pulled with four points, 75-71, on Josh Richardson's 3-pointer. But former Sixer Boban Marjanovic responded with a personal 6-0 run to put the Mavs up, 81-71, with 9:11 to play. Maxi Kleber's 3-pointer at the 4:15 mark gave Dallas a 99-84 advantage. They had 21-point cushion with 2:34 to play.
The Sixers wanted to carry their defensive intellect in regards to the game plan they had in Thursday's victory over the Boston Celtics into Saturday's game. The different pick-and-roll scheme in that game was different from when they play with Embiid.
However, they couldn't duplicate that against the Mavs.
Before the game, Simmons and Jonah Bolden stood alongside Mavs player Ryan Broekhoff, who addressed the crowd about the bush fires that has ravaged over 12 million acres in the trio's home country of Australia. Broekhoff asked the fans if they could make donations to the relief and recovery efforts.
Simmons, Bolden, Broekhoff, with the other six Australian NBA players, have combined to contribute $750,000 to the efforts.
