On Christmas Day, the Philadelphia 76ers pulled off one of the more impressive wins of the season league-wide, as they handled the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks 121-109, and held reigning NBA MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo to just 18 points on 8-for-27 shooting from the floor. The win worked to show just how high the ceiling for the current Sixers squad can be. 

Since then though, the Sixers have dropped four straight games -- at Orlando, Miami, Indiana, and Houston -- which has led some to question their legitimacy as a true contender as currently constructed. The losing streak is the longest for Philadelphia in over two years, and after their loss to the Rockets on Friday night, All-Star center Joel Embiid admitted that his team's struggles were getting to him. 

"Losing four in a row sucks, and it doesn't feel like we're getting better," Embiid said, via Tim MacMahon of ESPN. "So it is frustrating. ... I care about winning. It's taking a toll on me. All I care about is winning. It sucks. We've got to find a way. I guess we've got to keep fighting."

The Sixers shook things up in a major way over the offseason as they replaced Jimmy Butler and J.J. Redick in the starting lineup with Josh Richardson and Al Horford, and the results have been mixed. They have shown flashes of their lofty potential, as they did on Christmas Day, and they have a respectable 23-14 record. However, they've struggled mightily on the road (they're just 7-12 away from Philly), and have received inconsistent contributions from their two biggest offseason additions. Horford specifically has struggled to find a comfortable role within Philadelphia's framework. Earlier this very week, Horford bemoaned his inability to find a rhythm on his new team. 

Both Horford and Richardson are capable of spacing the floor, but neither are lethal knock-down shooters like Redick was, which means that it has been easier for opposing defenses to pack the paint against Embiid this season, and this appears to be at the root of Embiid's frustration. 

"The way I'm being guarded, I'm being doubled every time I have the ball and everybody crowds the paint," Embiid said on Friday night. "So it's kind of hard to just move the ball and just keep it moving and find ways to score." 

Like most dominant post players, Embiid is at his best when he has space to operate, so the ideal situation for him would be to be surrounded by established shooting threats. That's not the case in Philadelphia this season though, as Tobias Harris, Horford, Richardson, and Mike Scott are all streaky, while Ben Simmons provides no perimeter presence at all. Without threats around him to space the floor, defenders can cheat off of their assignments and double down on Embiid. Or teams will play zone against the Sixers, as has happened quite a bit so far, in an effort to neutralize their size and force them to win games from the perimeter. Realizing this, Embiid encouraged his teammates to space the floor, even if doing so means stepping outside of a comfort zone. 

"We just got to look at ourselves and see what we can do better individually," Embiid said at practice following the team's loss to Indiana. "We gotta help each other, even if that means being outside of your comfort zone as far as to help the team win. Meaning that if you gotta space and shoot it, you gotta do it. We need everybody to buy into that. We'll be fine. We're gonna be fine. We're still finding our groove. We haven't been totally healthy, the whole starting lineup. Like I said, we'll be fine." 

It's not panic time for coach Brett Brown and the Sixers, who sit at sixth in the East, and within striking distance of a top-two seed, with plenty of the season left for them to get in a groove.  However, it's never a great sign with a team's best player publicly expresses frustration. For the Sixers, the spacing issue on offense is real, and something that they will need to address -- either through changes in the rotation or trades -- if they're going to reach their full potential as a team this season.