According to StatMuse, the Philadelphia 76ers are averaging 26.4 points in the 3rd quarter. The team in the NBA that averages the worst points per quarter are the Brooklyn Nets at 26.75, averaging 107 points per game. Somehow, despite their notoriously dreadful 3rd quarter scoring, the Sixers are 11th in the NBA in scoring averaging 29.175 points per quarter.
One Reddit user named u/InterviewLow6538 took to the site after another abysmal 3rd quarter wherein the Miami Heat overcame a 16 point deficit and the Sixers went into the fourth up by 8 thanks to some late quarter heroics. This Reddit poster pointed out that “if you remove the 3rd Quarter the 76ers record would go from 33-26 to 42-17.”
The Sixers need to follow hotel logic when they skip the 13th floor in an elevator. Maybe if we rename the 4th quarter internally, and pretend the 4th quarter is overtime – the Sixers can overcome the mental hurdle of the “3rd quarter.”
The feeling in the stadium was tense at halftime, the nearly 20,000 Sixers fans in attendance have grown accustomed to the third quarter failings of their favorite team. Boo-birds were out early into the 3rd quarter as the Sixers took nearly 4 minutes of gameplay to down their first bucket.
In the 3rd quarter this season the Sixers have a FG% of 43.1% and are shooting 32.1% from three, which are worse than any team’s average per game percentage in the NBA.
It feels like the Sixers have had the same inexplicable problems forever. Death, taxes, and third quarter Sixers, our inability to run an inbounds play, and our horrendous luck personnel-wise have been tentpoles of the Sixers fan experience.
The day the 76ers have a 40 point 3rd quarter is the day I believe the Sixers are a championship contender.
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