 A Game To Forget I guess I owe Miami an apology. If anyone looked like a bad team tonight, it wasn't them. Our beloved Philadelphia 76ers pulled off their best Washington Generals impression and managed to make a bad night even worse for yours truly.I spent a good 20 minutes debating what adjective best describes the Sixers play and I finally settled on lazy. It seems kind of tame considering how angry I am right now, but it fits. The Heats were all over the floor, and the Sixers made their job easy. Lazy passes, lazy catches, lazy ball handling ... just plain lazy. Twenty-five turnovers. Every run they made was halted by turnovers. Every Miami run was feuled by them. The Sixers did not look like the team that's rounded the bend and is on its way to a deep playoff run, they looked like the disorganized young team who's going to spend the season struggling. I'd usually go about placing blame at this point of the post, but there's just too much to go around. The height of embarassment came late in the fourth when Andre Iguodala was playing during garbage time. Why was he in there, you ask? Well, he was on the floor so he could score a point. Mo let him play the extra minutes so he wouldn't suffer the embarassment of being held scoreless. It took about three minutes for him to sink a layup against a Miami D that had long since stopped trying. Pitiful. After the jump I'll try to pull something positive out of this mess of a game.
Thaddeus Young. Once again, he's the bright shining light in a dark game. He wasn't perfect, like everyone else, he had way too many turnovers (5), but I dare say he is quickly becoming this team's go-to guy. Here's some evidence:
I don't know how quickly it's going to happen, but it's unavoidable. Thad is going to be the Sixers' stopper in big situations. He may even lead this team in scoring before all is said and done. The only other positive was Speights who tallied his first single-double. He grabbed 10 boards in his 17 minutes of work. A game like this throws rotations completely off, but I did see one positive and one HUGE negative. The positvie was Kareem Rush coming in for Iguodala when he picked up two quick fouls in the first. I was shocked it wasn't Willie, shocked and extremely pleased. The negative came late in the third. With 2:51 left, the Sixers had shaved 13 points off the lead. They were down 69-58, a completely manageable deficit with that much time left. For some reason, Mo decided this was a perfect time to bring both Lou and Willie off the bench. Instead of using the final two minutes to shake Miami's confidence and cut the lead to single digits heading into the fourth, they limped through, let Miami tack another point on and lost the momentum. Bad call, Mo. The only good thing about this loss, or potential good thing, is that we don't have to sit with it for very long. The Sixers will head to Orlando for a match-up with Dwight Howard and the Orlando Magic tomorrow night. It's a TNT game, scheduled to tip off at 8 p.m. Let's hope for a complete turnaround on short rest. Tomorrow will be a huge test. I'm thinking Theo should be activated for the game, just to have 6 more fouls to use on Howard. Player of The Game: Thad Team Record: 2-3 (.5 behind the Knicks, yikes.) Up Next: Orlando 
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I thought Ivey was a third, small positive. I'd play him over Green.
without question.
I am enjoying Thads development into the Sixers best all around player. I am very troubled by Iguodola though..He cant shoot and seems to have lost confidence overall. Hes looking like a guy who is cracking under the pressure of the big contract and the expectation that this team is actually supposed to be good. Its one thing to score 20 a night on a team everybody thinks is going to suck...its another to do it when it really matters.
This team is confused. Iggy was the leading scorer last year, mostly because we didn't have anyone else to fit the bill. So, we played nothing but tough D and Iggy scored a ton of points off the fast break. Now, we have two guys who can "shoot"... Thad and Brand. I'm not saying Brand's a shooter, per se, but he can score from a variety of locations on the court. At best, Iggy is now the fifth best offensive threat on the team (behind Lou and Miller as well).
The point is, Iggy has completely lost his role from last year and, frankly, it's hard to figure what his role can be on this year's team. I'd say defensive stopper, but he's really looked like crap on defense so far this year. Frankly, it's a shame we didn't pay him the $57 mil he's worth. Had we done so, he might be tradeable. Now, not so much.
Hey Brian, haven't commented in a while, but I'm back on the wagon now that my Phillies hysteria has died down.
The one thing I thought about last night: it's an 82-game season, and even the best teams have a stinker now and again -- I mean, Boston just got blown out by Indiana). But with this and the Hawks loss, that's 2 stinkers in just 5 games from the Sixers. Slow starters or not, that's just completely unacceptable for a team that fancies itself an up-and-coming contender.
A bounceback tonight is not only desirable, it's damn near necessary.
Good to hear from you again.
I don't know what to expect from this team tonight. After they lost on opening night, Elton came out in the following game completely pissed off and basically put the Knicks away in the first quarter. The Magic are not the Knicks, though.
It'll be interesting to see if Dwight Howard is guarding Brand.
I must admit...unless its a huge game...I dont watch every play of every game. But from what Ive seen of Iguodola he just doesnt seem to have the confidence to take an open shot and make it. It seems to me if he gets a wide open look he does a few ball fakes or attmepts to drive to the rim or he starts dribbling. I rarely see him catch and shoot. Doesnt every single SG in the league have that ability ? hell even Bruce Bowen can knock down an open 3. I am REALLY regretting paying him 80 or 85 million to be this type of player. Hes not a lockdown defender by any stretch. Hes good...not great. And he seems to turn the ball over way too much...
I know he can help in other ways but a SG has to SCORE. Even just a little or at least be a threat to score. Doing all the "little things" is not enough. It may be against the knicks and Kings...but not against any half decent team.
I hate to say it but his lack of development is really going to hold this team back now and in the future. Good luck trading a 85 million dollar SG who cant shoot. I am here to tell you now...the SG experiment isnt working. If Thad werent so good you could move him back to SF...but Thad IS that good. So really...what do you do with guy ?
Let's wait 21 games. Give him a little more than a quarter of the season, then we can reassess. We've seen this guy play, we know he isn't this bad. Give him that much time to settle down.
If the Sixers turn it over a ton again tonight I don't know what I will do. I might snap.
That one TO where Miller just didn't catch an outlet pass pissed me off a pretty large amount.
The outlet from Sammy? Seriously, what the hell was he doing?
Just about every one of them pissed me off. Guys just standing there waiting for the ball to get to them, letting Chalmers and Wade step right in front of them. Pitiful.
Seriously, where is the defensive intensity we saw last year? It just seems like their heads aren't in the game. Maybe they are thinking they don't have to try as hard? Thad is the only one I can watch right now and they still aren't running plays for him.
time will tell brian. 21 games sounds like a fair assessment...if the sixers are like 9-14 maybe Mo will make a change. Honestly I see Iggy as their biggest issue right now...
I see his play as their biggest issue, but I won't go as far as to say he isn't the guy for them. I'll give him 1/4 of the season to settle into his new role.
Honestly, his new role doesn't need to be a 20 pt/game scorer. It looks like Thad can be that guy, but if he's going to score 12-15 he needs to contribute elsewhere, and he absolutely must not turn the ball over like this. That's unacceptable.
I hate Iguodala, but he's not at all this bad, this bad being 10 points, 3.2 turnovers a game, 38% shooting and 15% from three bad. Yeah, he'll improve. But this is why we shouldn't have kept him. He's a good, but not transcendent defender by any means, a guy who's always turned the ball over a lot (over the two previous seasons, he averaged 3 a game - this isn't anything new for him), and the instant he's not your only offensive threat, he stops doing anything. And we already knew that. Back when Iverson was still here, he barely scored more than Korver. By the end of last season, certainly by the playoffs, you knew it was only a matter of time before Thad would surpass him. Maybe this season, maybe next. Now it's happened already. So we shelled out all this money for a third scorer who plays the two, can't shoot, defends well but not on the level of an Artest or something, and turns the ball over a lot. I really don't see the logic in that. What other turnover-prone third scorers make this kind of money? You'll point out that he does other things, that he rebounds. But on a Brand/Dalembert/Reggie Evans/Thad Young team, you don't at all need a shooting guard who rebounds particularly well for his position.
21 games. I'm giving him that much time.
To me, the most disappointing thing about him this season has been his defense. Guys seem to be blowing by him off he dribble way too regularly. Anyway, let's see how he does tonight.
But he's not going to become a more talented player than Thad in 21 games. Whatever he's doing 21 games from now, he'll still be, down the road at least, a third scorer who doesn't shoot so well. And turns the ball over a lot. And maybe he steps it up to 15 ppg and plays nice defense, but I still don't see that being worth the money we paid.
I hope Andre has a thick skin...because if he is still playing this bad 10 games into the season he is going to get the Keith Van Horn treatment at home games. And sadly, the Sixers will not beat any good teams with him sucking this bad either. Too much of the sixers game plan depends on him executing on both ends of the floor. Stay tuned people...this could get REALLY ugly if we are 25 games into the season and the sixers are 10 and 15.