(Associated Press)

In case you missed it, here's a quick recap of the 76ers' season-opening win earlier this week: They shot poorly, but gutted one out.

There aren't going to be too many instances in which they'll shoot 35 percent or worse and find a way to win, like they did Wednesday against Denver.

Jason Richardson said the fans, all 19,101 of them at Wells Fargo Center, were partly to blame.

“The energy of the crowd – none of us was expecting that," Richardson said after practice Friday. "They were on their feet from the beginning of the game. Guys really had that drilled into them, ‘Hey, I want to be the man,’ or ‘Hey, I want to take the shot that gets the crowd going.’ We got a little caught up into that. 

"We didn’t play like that the whole preseason. We moved the ball, we passed the ball the whole preseason. Guys just wanted to do so good because of the energy of the crowd."

In any case, the Sixers think that stout defense can do plenty to mask a poor shooting night. And while they'd rather iron out the wrinkles of their offense before looking to their defense to bail them, out, Doug Collins & Co. acknowledged that it's nice to have something to fall back on.

On improving the Sixers' offense, Collins did two things Friday: He blamed himself for not managing mismatches (the Nuggets, on more than one occasion, put their power forward against Jrue Holiday, and the Sixers did nothing to take advantage of that) and he said a few of his guys don't know all the plays they're running. Click here to read more about it.