As a fan, you have to draw a line in the sand somewhere when it comes to losing, especially when your favorite team does as much losing as the Sixers do. In my case, I'll take a demoralizing loss over a gut-wrenching heart breaker in overtime any day of the week. Seen through that lens, the Toronto loss was a vast improvement over the disaster in Washington the night before.
Charts:
Thoughts:
- Even if you believe Toronto is a terrible team with an extremely bleak outlook for the near- and long-term future, you had to come into this game expecting a loss. Playing on the road, on the second night of the b-2-b, without Brand, against a well-rested Toronto team riding a win streak? Come on, you had to know this was coming. Though I will admit, I thought the Sixers would fold in the second half, not the first quarter.
- Good to see both Holiday and Iguodala have fine games across the board. They both scored efficiently, contributed in all areas, and took good care of the ball. Depressing as hell to see both of those guys play so well and still see a 16-point loss for the team, but playing 2 on 5 tends to end up like that (and 2 on 5 is being generous considering the contributions a couple guys on the Sixers made).
- 95 minutes in two games for Iguodala immediately upon his return from the achilles strain. I'm not sure if I should be happy he's back to full strength so quickly, or holding my breath that he's being ridden that hard.
- 1/11 for Lou Williams, dropping his field goal percentage all the way down to 34% on the season. If he doesn't start hitting shots soon, he's going to quickly become completely useless to this team. The good news is that he isn't this bad as a shooter. I think he's probably a low 40% guy, and will be for his career when all is said and done, but no one is a 34% shooter.
- Speaking of shots, I have no idea what to make of Evan Turner's play over the last couple of games. Zero shots in 16 minutes against Toronto. Over his past four games, he's only attempted 21 shots. I love that the kid can effect the game without scoring, but at a certain point he's making the team play 4 on 5, or worse, if he isn't going to do anything on the offensive end. I put this 50% on Collins, who absolutely has to start calling plays to get him looks, and insist that he take those shots. And 50% on Turner. It's not like he goes long stretches without touching the ball on the offensive end, he's part of the offense, he just needs to look to do something with the ball when he gets it, instead of looking around for who he can pass it to. The guys still seems to ooze confidence when he's talking to the press, how about putting some of it to work on the floor? Spencer Hawes should never take 8 more shots than Turner, under no circumstances. Hell, he shouldn't take 1 more shot than Turner.
Player of The Game: I'm going with Jrue because he was slightly more efficient scoring the ball, but I just love the combined lines of he and Iguodala: 12/25 from the floor, 2/3 from three, 7/8 from the line, 15 boards, 12 assists, 2 steals, 1 block, 4 turnovers, 33 points.
Team Record: 3-13
Up Next: @ Miami, later tonight.
Game capsule
My holiday schedule continues, I hope yours does as well. The tip is at 7:30 tonight, no preview. The game thread will be up at 6pm and I'll be watching on delay again.
Sixers have to beat Heat to avoid 0-3 trip:
http://ow.ly/3fTjh
Good Hoops World write up from this morning with some seemingly exclusive Collins interview segments:
http://www.hoopsworld.com/Story.asp?story_id=18010
Don't know if it's been mentioned, but the Intelligencer, via NBA Fanhouse, reports that Brackins will be assigned to a D-League team in Syracuse over which we have no control.
The Hoops World story is good and it looks like Collins gets it. Make sure Jrue, Turner, Young, Speights?, Hawes?? Meeks??? Williams???? Brackins????? get their minutes and do not worry about the losses. Make sure you get a piece for the future when you trade Iggy and get another piece in the draft next year and this ship might head in the right direction when the Brand contract mercifully ends.
Speights should be playing as much as possible.
It's retarded that Battie is getting his minutes. Lets find out if these guys suck or not, and if they suck, let them go.
And yeah, try to get a good young player, a pick or two, and an expiring contract/s when you deal iggy.
That is all I ask for the team. Also for it to keep losing. Lose it up.