Strangest loss so far this season is Sixers’ road swag

PHILADELPHIA >> Present the 76ers with any basketball-generated numbers, and they will massage them, analyze them and squeeze them into some kind of conclusion.

So naturally, Brett Brown understood Saturday that his team had produced something of a mathematical quirk in the first quarter of its season, one at least worthy of an explanation.

Simply, what to the metrics reveal about a team that brought a 10-0 record into a Saturday game against the visiting Cleveland

Cavaliers yet was just 5-7 on the road?

“I think about it a lot,” Brown said. “And you could say, ‘Is that a good thing or a bad thing?’ I actually see it more as a positive, funny enough.” Funny how?

“I get that you have to start to win on the road,” he said. “But I think that we will do that as we get a little more tighter and play more together and so on. I think that is coming.”

The Sixers, as they’d been doing for going on a calendar year, reinvented themselves in the offseason. With that, they were due for some measure of a developmental phase. They also had their usual barrage of injuries and maintenance days that caused them to enjoy just nine of their first 23 games with their preferred starting unit. Saturday, they played without usual starters Joel Embiid (hip) and Josh Richardson (hamstring).

Mix in a suspension to Embiid that likely contributed to an earlier loss in Phoenix, and there were some explanations, if not excuses, for that .461 road winning percentage. And given that the Sixers had yet to lose in the Wells Fargo Center, that gap naturally would be stretched.

“I think our fans deserve a lot of credit,” Brown said. “You come home, you better be prepared to bring it. And I think that side of our true home identity, I am proud of. I am thrilled and grateful for our crowd.”

As long as the Sixers remain the only NBA team without a home loss, Brown, for one, will not dwell on the reality that his road record is decidedly less glittering.

“So do I judge it as something that is really problematic?” Brown said. “As it sits, I understand why others might. I get it. But I think there are more positives and ways to figure out how to fix that than I think, ‘Oh, the world is caving in.’”

••• Richardson missed his fifth consecutive game with a tight right hamstring. According to the Sixers, the guard went through a complete full-court workout early Saturday in Camden, and “progressed and presented well.”

Richardson also will not play Sunday night (a 6:30 start) against visiting Toronto. His status will next be updated Monday.

• • • When Nik Stauskas was with the Sixers, Brown invited his college coach, John Beilein, to watch some training camp workouts at Stockton University in South Jersey.

That was the same John Beilein who has come to coach the Cavaliers.

“He was great,” Brown said. “He is good people. Down to earth. I took stuff from him. I loved watching his teams play at Michigan.

I’ve always been a fan from afar. And he was good company. We took some stuff from him that we used for Nik. And I enjoyed his visit.”

• • •

NOTES >> With Embiid and Richardson unavailable, Brown shifted Al Horford to center and started Furkan Korkmaz and Mike Scott against the Cavaliers. … According to the Sixers, Zhaire Smith attempted to leap over a chair to make a play in a minor-league game in Delaware and sustained a deep laceration in his right lower leg, requiring four sutures. … While on a G-league assignment, Jonah Bolden reported right Achilles soreness.