The Sixers aren't the first team to lose a game to the Minnesota Timberwolves (Denver, Utah twice, New Jersey twice, Sacramento, Washington and Indian have also lost to them). They aren't even the first team to blow a fourth-quarter lead to the T-Wolves (New Jersey held 16 on them in the fourth in the first game of the season, only to lose), so in a vacuum, this game could be called an aberration. Unfortunately, we this game doesn't exist in a vacuum, and the manner in which the Sixers lost is indicative of the type of team they've become. A bad one.
Here's your rotation chart, a few thoughts on it below.
You'll notice the team's best and worst rotations came from the same group, the starters. Anecdotally, the reason was the T-Wolves suddenly realizing the Sixers were using Lou Williams and Allen Iverson to guard Jonny Flynn during the half, but let's take a closer look. The monster image below is the play-by-play for both stretches of the game (click to view large image in a pop-up).
The opening stretch of the first quarter was an up-and-down stretch with the Sixers getting into transition off their defense and hitting a couple of threes to buoy their scoring numbers. Overall, the defense was the key. They forced turnovers, blocked shots, controlled the defensive glass and Minnesota settled for 8 long two-point jumpers.
Two things jump out at me immediately about the third quarter. First, the T-Wolves were really moving the ball and working the clock. Not a lot of one-on-one ball being played, they absolutely were not settling for long twos (only 2 attempted). Most of the jumpers were set shots created off penetration. They were unbelievably efficient and their scoring mostly came from Flynn in the lane and Gomes on kick-outs. The second observation is that Allen Iverson was absolutely killing the Sixers over this stretch. AI3 was 1/5 from the floor with 3 turnovers and he wasn't exactly helping matters on the defensive end.
This was obviously completely lost on his coach. When he finally got around to subbing players in and out, it was Thad who went to the bench in favor of Elton Brand with 4:32 left in the quarter. Then Jordan went with Green for Lou Williams. He didn't remove Iverson from the game until there were only 51 seconds left. That's 51 seconds left in the game, not in the third quarter. Yes, you read that correctly. Allen Iverson played 23:09 consecutively in the second half of this game on his arthritic left knee, and he did so after completely hamstringing the team in the crucial 7:28 to being the third quarter when Minnesota made a game of what should've been a laugher. Excellent rotations, coach.
Jordan isn't alone in the blame for this loss, nor was this the only questionable move he made, though. Willie Green, who I'm sure Jordan said "really got after it," posted the quintessential Willie Green line: 32 minutes, 5/9 from the floor (he started 5/5, then went 0/4 in the fourth/overtime),
0 rebounds, 0 assists, 0 steals, 0 blocks, 0 turnovers, 3 fouls. To be fair to Willie, he was shooting it well early, and he did a better job on Flynn than Lou/Iverson, but only marginally. These lines have also been extremely infrequent this season, but still, when your team is flailing defensively like the Sixers did the entire second half, it's tough to justify Willie for 17 straight minutes and not a single second for Jrue.
Speaking of Jrue, 11 minutes in the first half for the kid, +7 for the team while he was in there, zero playing time in a second half and overtime that saw the T-Wolves score 68 points. But I didn't like what I saw from him on two possessions, and I really don't like what I think is the reason behind it. On one play, Willie dribbled the ball up court, it was a 1-on-4 transition opportunity (Willie was the one). Green dribbled into a 20-foot jumper and hit it. The next time down the floor, Jrue dribbled the ball up court, it was a 2-on-3 transition opportunity, and Jrue dribbled into a 17-foot jumper and hit it. Neither was a good shot by any stretch of the imagination, and I really think that shot was out of character for Jrue. Jordan's reward system is messing with this kid's head. No matter how well he defends, he's not going to play big minutes unless he's taking and hitting jumpers. Willie Green literally steals his minutes based on nothing but shooting, so he's doing exactly what his coach rewards, taking jumpers. He took an ill-advised three a little bit later, missing it. Again, the shot was not a good shot, in fact, it was a shot Willie would usually take. The only other shot he got in his 11-minute run was a baseline jumper against the shot clock, so it didn't really have anything to do with his shot selection.
I mentioned above that the blame could be spread well beyond Jordan for this one, so let's get to it. Iguodala's missed free throw was a killer, and he really missed the second as well but got bailed out by Al Jefferson pulling a Dalembert. His two turnovers in overtime, in succession, certainly didn't help either. The first was a flop by Brewer that drew a questionable whistled, the second was a blatant double-dribble. I didn't love the play with 4 seconds left in regulation, not sure if that's completely on Iguodala but I would've liked to have seen something better than a fade-away 17-footer from the wing. His line for the game was strong, but for the turnovers, but he certainly needs to do a better job down the stretch.
Elton Brand missed a pair of free throws right before Iguodala went to the line. He shot only 4/8 from the stripe tonight and he's actually been struggling from there recently. He's only shooting 63.3% (31/49) on freebies over his past ten games. Beyond the missed free throws, only 7 attempts in 27 minutes against a defensive front line like Minnesota's is simply unforgivable. I'll leave it up to you to decide if he deserves the blame for that, his teammates do or his coach.
If you can put the whole first half/second half night/day difference out of your mind for a second and look at the game as a whole, it's pretty easy to determine why the Sixers lost, statistically. They turned one of the worst three-point shooting teams in the league into one of the best with their horrible on-the-ball defense and ridiculous rotations. Nothing new. The fact that they lost to the Timberwolves minus arguably their best player in Kevin Love is unexplainable. They had such an unbelievable talent advantage in this game...oh well. The good news is the Timberwolves won, if you're into the whole John Wall thing.
Player of The Game: Kapono. He didn't get into the game, but I did notice he's grown a beard since the last time we saw him, and that's more productive than anything anyone else associated with the team accomplished today.
Team Record: 13-27
Up Next: vs. Portland, on Wednesday night.
I'll have a couple posts later today, so check back throughout.
I didn't get a chance to read the game thread before writing this, heading over there now. Thanks for keeping it going in my absence, guys.
i'm not into that whole John Wall thing, but i am into that whole getting our dumbshit coach fired thing, and i hope to christ that this loss will help that dream become a reality soon.
I'm with ya.
Amen.
Asides from the losing, none of our youngsters are being developed properly. If Jordan sticks around for any length of time they'll have to break bad habits he established.
Saw in Kate Fagans game writeup that she saw Stefanski after the game leaning against a wall outside the visitors locker room. I wonder if its just a coincidence that Stefanski made the trip? I don't know how often he goes on the road with the team, but that seemed rather curious to me. I know I wouldn't be jumping at the opportunity to go to Minnesota...maybe there's some serious evaluation going on?
No, unfortunately Stefanski was there for different reasons: apparently one of his son, Kevin, is an offensive quality-control assistant on the Minnesota Vikings and the chance to meet him was the reason he traveled with the team. That doesn't mean, though, that after watching this loss in person won't take any action. At least that's what we hope.
If I didn't know better, I'd think that EJ had a huge bet on the game and needed the Sixers to lose. That's why he purposely put in AI3 for as long as he did, with that bum knee and took Jrue out when he was +7. I mean, how else can you explain losing to the lowly Timberwolves WITHOUT Kevin Love? Seriously, the coach made every wrong substitution.
Sure, his players may have missed some opportunities at the FT line and made some mistakes. But it's up to the coach to monitor those mistakes, take players out when they're struggling, and come up with a winning game plan.
So Brian, this loss is absolutely on the coach, not the players. Players make mistakes -- all players do, even the best. And even the best players have their off nights but you can still win a game, even without your best player or need everyone hitting their shots to win. It's called defense, drawing up good plays, controlling the tempo, etc....aka...COACHING.
And unfortunately, we have Eddie Jordan...the worst coach in the NBA.
So what has it been now, about 2 or three games with better rotations and then all of a sudden he switches back to "getting after it" mentality? Brian, you are absolutely correct, any normal coach would have seen the Timberwolves strategy with Flynn and Gomes and made appropriate subsitutions. Why is Jordan allowed to get away with this?
If there is one thing I did like, was that he sat Lou the entire fourth. It wasn't just Iverson failing on defense, Lou was terrible in the third quarter. Absolutely terrible. Why did he get rewarded with playing in overtime?
Another observation: Iguodala mishandling the ball in crucial situations goes to show you how badly this team needs a point guard.
I was cursing at my computer during the third, then laughing during the fourth/overtime. I wonder if anything good will ever happen to help this team...
The two-man game with Brewer and Gomes was my personal favorite. Because of Jordan's ridiculous small-ball lineup we had to double down on Brewer to help AI, and every time our PF did it (once Thad, once Brand), Gomes drilled a 3. That's a mismatch we completely created ourselves for them.
I believe every team has capable players to exploit these automatic mismatches given to them. If they don't figure it out right away, they do eventually. The fact that it was done so easily by Minnesota is all the more pathetic.
It's funny, we talk about all the bad substitution moves (and the rare good ones) that Eddie Jordan does and doesn't make, but it begins and ends with the elephant in the room: Eddie Jordan is starting and giving major minutes to a backcourt with two 6-foot guards who can't defend. Is there anyone among Sixer fandom who actually thinks the AI/Lou backcourt is a good idea? Because we preface our statements with, "Given that EJ is going to start the AI/Lou backcourt ...," but that's really saying, "Given that we start every game with an automatic mismatch and force our defensively-challenged team to double and rotate ..." -- how crazy is that? I think it's time someone (Kate?) called EJ on the carpet for that.
But see, the thing that gets at me about this is, by Stefanski's own admittal him and EJ talk and discuss everyday. So if Stefanski has had credit bestowed upon him the last few games or so for the supposed changed rotations after his public tirade, then he must get credit for this too since he obviously agrees with it, right? Screw calling EJ on the carpet, someone needs to call ES to the mike and hear his take on this madness.
Or...was this just a closed door guarantee that Stefanski gave Iverson when they met in the ATL?
I understand if there was an agreement to start Iverson. It doesn't mean you have to start Lou with him each time.
EJ could start Jrue or Iggy or Carney or heck, even Green with AI in the backcourt.
I get all of that. I'm just going off the premise that Lou is a given to start because Stefanski anointed him as such in the offseason. Without actual quotes, he basically said I'm handing Lou the keys this year and he's earned his chance at increased minutes.
But I absolutely do not agree with a guarantee being given to AI, if that is what happened. If ES knew he wanted Lou as a starter for whatever reason, then how could he even bring himself to make AI a guarantee like that? In a sense, he was ushering in the 'automatic mismatch' back court from the jump.
That Iguodala last shot in regulation was the same bs shot that he has been doing the last 3 years with the game on the line. Yeah he stuffed the box score but when it was time to seal the deal he showed his true loser colors.
This team is a god damn joke. From the owner who doesn't do shit. To the gm, every move that guy makes turns into garbage. Thats bad news because there a lot of moves to be made. And lastly to the head coach who was brought in because of his princeton offense which they don't even attempt to teach at practice anymore....wtf is the purpose of having Jordan if were not going to run the PO??
Do these 3 shitbirds really expect fans to come and pay real money to watch them? Those 3 guys can go fuk themselves, and I hope that Stefanski and Jordon never work again. And when they go I hope that they take half this shitty, loseresque team with them. Clippers east, that's how this fukn loss has made me feel.
I guess Iguodala doesn't have that "clutch" shooting ability that every 20ppg all star has, right?
Iguodala and clutch don't belong on the same sentence.
I bet +20ppg and clutch belong in the same sentence, right?
Iggy is the number one guy I would look to on this current group of players to make a play, problem is that he always goes for his own shot and it's always a jumper. If he goes to the hoop or penetrates to create for others that would be better.
Hard to believe but this was EJ's worst coaching job yet. He now has too many pieces and he doesn't know how to juggle them. He seems mentally challenged out there. Glad ED S was there to see this first hand. Hopefully, a change is coming.
The argument over who is and isn't "clutch" is pointless. Nobody's particularly good at game winning or tying shots:
http://www.82games.com/gamewinningshots.htm
You see a guy hit a game winner on Sports Center and think, "wow, he must do that ALL THE TIME!!" but it really doesn't happen. Plus when you need a "clutch" shot to beat the fucking Timberwolves, I don't think that's really the problem...
Did you notice the quotation marks I put around the word?
I think the main problem with having Iguodala as your leading scorer is that it guarantees that your half court offense is below average which we are.
This is a valid point. If he's your leading scorer, you don't have enough talent to put together a competent half court offense. If he's your leading scorer, you're probably asking the wrong things of a player like him. That doesn't mean you should get rid of him, or that he's unclutch, or not a leader, though. It also doesn't mean that he can't be a key cog in an efficient half-court offense. It just means we don't have the right pieces around him and/or, the shots aren't going to the right people.
Personally, I think Brand should be getting about 15 shots/game, instead of the 10.9 he's getting right now. He should be the first option when we're forced into the half-court, not an afterthought. Jrue is apparently the only Sixer who agrees with me on this matter, though.
So how much less do you think we would ask of Iguodala in an ideal world? I don't see why he should take more than 10 shots a game, if you have a good offense. In a good offense, there's really no reason Iguodala should ever take a three or a long two.
If you have a perfect offense, then yes I'd agree. Show me a team with a perfect offense, though.
Phoenix has the best offense in the league, and they allow Jason Richardson to take 1.9 long twos per game (at a 33% clip), Grant Hill takes 2.8 long twos per game (at a 40% clip).
Go through any team's stats in the league and you're going to find guys who shouldn't shoot taking shots you'd rather they didn't, but sometimes that's the only shot available.
In a perfect world LeBron would take every single one of his shots at the rim. In fact, LeBron attempts more long twos than Iguodala and shoots them at exactly the same rate. On a good team would LeBron's shot attempts be limited to say 15 and he'd only be allowed to shoot at the rim?
I mean, Cleveland's offense is highly imperfect. And a lot of commentators point out that LeBron takes way too many long jumpers. So in a perfect world, I think those would be drastically reduced, although not eliminated because yeah, that's impossible. As for Richardson, he is a guy who's shot better in the past, and 1.9 isn't that much. You are, of course, sometimes forced to take what the defense wants to give you. But Iguodala's usage goes way beyond taking what the defense is giving us.
I'm not arguing that Iguodala should take 4.7 long jumpers/game, not at all. But saying on a good team he's only taking 10 shots/game and he's not taking any long twos is absurd. Kobe took 7 per game at 42% last season, that's not good offense. Wade is consistently up around 7 attempts per game, and never higher than 41%. Paul Pierce, the list goes on. Iguodala is a small margin worse than most of these guys on long twos, hardly enough to say he'd be complete liability in the half court on a "good team" and he'd only be worth of 10 shots/game.
I think this is kind of a pointless argument, to be honest. If he was put on a team with competent coaching and surrounding talent, I'd be his shots/game would drop to between 12-13, his shooting percentages would rise and we'd see him going to the rim a lot more often. He wouldn't be double teamed on a team with other, better scoring options.
I don't think ten's such an absurd number, that's about what RJ takes now that he plays with Duncan, Parker and a pretty shot Ginobili. I'd also disagree that Kobe taking all those 42% long twos is bad offense; of course they're not optimal shots, but any offense is going to be forced to take some long twos, and 42% is pretty good from that range. What I would point out is that players who can't shoot threes are perfectly capable of never taking them - Wade used to take under one a game, Monta's had years where he took less than one a game, and most bigs don't go out there. However, players who are bad at shooting long twos seem to take a lot of those, even though they probably score fewer points per shot on them than they do on their wayward threes. The reason being that they understand that the three is beyond their range and a low percentage shot, but don't realize that the long twos, while a little more inside their range, aren't as worth it. As stats start to play a bigger role in coaching, I think you'll see players like Iguodala - guys who are terrible shooters from beyond the foul line - take more threes and cut down on the long twos.
Do you have a problem with LaMarcus Aldridge's game?
Frankly I've never given Aldridge's game a whole lot of thought, but sure, if he could take his range out to three and take fewer long twos, like Channing Frye did, then that would definitely be an improvement. The guy's a pretty respectable mid-range shooter, although sure, with his size and post moves, he ought to go inside a whole lot more. All the same, it's impossible for a team to not take some shots from that range, so if you have to take some long twos, he's a decent guy to be taking them. If the worst shots your offense takes go in 41% of the time, you're going to be a pretty efficient team.
So is 41% your cutoff? or 40%? Or just anywhere above the 39% Iguodala shoots on them?
Also, I'd argue those shot by Aldridge are typically of a very different type than most of Iguodala's. They play for those long twos for him off the P&R with Roy. They're happy when he shoots them. It's not like he's getting the ball and forced to create a jumper of his own off the dribble late in the shot clock (which granted isn't the ONLY time Iguodala takes long twos, but he is put in that situation quite frequently).
I biggest gripe about that game other than substitution, er, lack of substitutions was Iffy's play. Did he drive to the hole once in the game because I don't remember it? He's the biggest culprit of playing down to the other team. When he does it resonates through the rest of the squad. If the isn't a #1 offensive weapon for him to D up he seems to get lost on defense. He gets his steals but he seems to refuse to meet a guy at the rim when a teammate gets beat. He sickens me. And these are reasons he isn't on Brandon Roy's level...not even close.
That's a new gripe. Iguodala doesn't block shots when his teammates get beat off the dribble. You're absolutely right, that's usually the responsibility of a small forward/shooting guard. Brandon Roy does it all the time, as you can tell by the 5 blocks he has this season (as opposed to the 25 Iguodala has.
And you're absolutely correct, the biggest issue on defense is that Iguodala doesn't help enough when Iverson and Lou are continually getting toasted off the dribble. God, I wish we had Brandon Roy, he'd be able to cover his man and make up for the three defensive mismatches Eddie Jordan creates with his rotations.
Maybe if we had a coach that played guards that know how to guard, we would not have these gripes.
It all rises or falls on leadership. I do not believe IA9 is at fault for any of the above, coaching puts him in a position that is not his responsibity. If anything, he is guilty of trying too hard.
Iffy is the leader of the team but he's no leader. Knitpicking my post doesn't change the fact that he doesn't have the ability to step up when needed on a consistent basis. He doesn't leave it all on the floor. He settles all the like the final shot of regulation.
I watch Iffy not challenge easy lay ups all the time and his strength is his defense. He doesn't have to block the shot but it's like he gets scared of having a foul called on him. He's got this diva mentality "well I'm not gonna get the block. So I'll just let him shoot."
And that's gay.
So attack me if you like. In your heart of hearts you know it's true.
In my heart of hearts the only thing I know is that you're a homophobic moron. Please take your nonsense to Philadunkia from here on.
That's ashame. You fell in love with the wrong guy.
He's a notch above role player at best. Team will do nothing building around this type of player. A unselfish defensive specialist with an inconsistent jumpshot, a subpar ability to get to the rim and bloated view of himself.
Well if that's true, you and Iguodala at least have one thing in common
I do not appreciate name calling and sarcasm. I am a season ticket holder, watch every game and read alot. IA9, not Iffy(cute but does not make sense), consistently rates in the upper echelon of players. I do not believe being perfect is a qualification for a player. He does, at times, slack, do dumb things, etc... but I think most of us do that at times.
Lets stick to the facts. If IA9 was not on this team, I believe this team would be worse than the Nets this year.
Leaders take the responsibility. When he accepted that contract he took the job as leader. It's a two-way street. Yes management shouldn't have put in that position but that's what is. And I judge it as such.
. When he accepted that contract he took the job as leader. It's a two-way street
Ah the big contract=leadership fallacy
I love that one
You make more money so now you should do things you've never done before in your career.