No recap this morning.

Nobody wants to read a detailed breakdown of a hideous Sixers loss in Cleveland, a game where Ben Simmons was already not available and then Joel Embiid went out and hurt himself in the first quarter. The Sixers proceeded to pitifully slump their way to 14-point defeat to one of the league’s worst teams.

They should have enough firepower to beat an Andre Drummond-less, 16-win Cavs team on the road. Tobias Harris is making $180 million over five years. Al Horford was given a four year, $109 million deal. Put those guys next to Josh Richardson, Shake Milton, Alec Burks, and Furkan Korkmaz, and that game last night should have been more competitive than it was.

It just felt like Harris and Horford were passive, which should not have been the case sans Simmons and Embiid. Combined, they shot 8-23 (34.7%), went to the foul line only twice, and finished with 21 points.

The thing that really left me scratching my head was the second half output. The Sixers actually out-shot Cleveland 89 to 78 on the evening and still lost by double-digits, which is unfathomable, but Harris and Horford only took seven of their 23 shots in third and fourth quarters:

That’s way too inactive for me. Tobias is a guy who has averaged 15 shots a game over the past few years, which includes his pre-Philadelphia time. He should feel comfortable at this point in his career with the ball in his hands, increasing his volume to the 20 FGA range in the absence of Simmons, Embiid, or both.

To that point, Mike over at The Athletic pulled this clip of Harris deferring out of a clear mismatch not once, but two times last night:

That’s bizarre, because Harris usually does a really nice job attacking mismatches like this. He’s quick enough to beat a guy like Zizic off the dribble here, and he’s also big enough to just back down smaller guys and shoot right over them. Really strange sequence there.

Horford, to me, hasn’t seemed to have his legs under him for some time now. He missed a bunny on a lob last night, which was one of just two shots in the paint. The eight other attempts came from outside that area, and the four shots he did hit were a pair of straight-on catch and shoot threes, a tough, turnaround baseline jumper, and a hook shot over Kevin Love.

Across the board, his per-36 numbers are significantly down. Some of that, of course, is the poor fit in Brett Brown’s system. A significant chunk, however, is him just missing shots and not playing to the level he’s capable of:

32.1% three point shooting on 5.2 attempts per 36 minutes. That number is a killer.

Horford will have opportunities to get to his spots tonight, assuming the shoulder strain keeps Embiid out again. The Sixers were already playing a half court game without Simmons, and if Brett Brown is smart here, he’ll just simplify the offense and feed Harris and Richardson a steady diet of pick and rolls with Horford screening. It’s an opportunity to let Al prove that he can still play if the Sixers are forced to scheme more to a limited personnel set.

Beyond that, you let Shake Milton do more of what he did last night. Korkmaz will play better at the Wells Fargo Center. There’s enough talent out there to beat a hapless Knicks team at home, and this is the perfect opportunity for Tobias Harris and Al Horford to prove to everybody that their signings were worth the money, because it certainly doesn’t look that way right now.