You got Elton Brand to be a low-post banger, right? How about you use him in the post.
Here is Elton's shot chart from tonight's game:
Three of his shots were misses from point blank range, the rest were from outside the key. I can count on one hand the number of times an offensive set started with him getting the ball on the low block. Actually, I think I saw Sammy down there begging for the ball more than Elton. It's probably not his fault, he's not calling the plays or designing the offense, but someone needs to go back and look at that game tape.
One more note on the game tape. The Sixers need to move the ball much more quickly around the perimeter when Elton gets doubled and passes it out. I remember one play in particular where Brand got rid of the ball the instant the double got to him with a crisp pass to Lou on the left side, beyond the three-point line. You've seen this done by other teams hundreds of times, and you know that if Lou gets the ball out of his hands quickly someone is wide open in the opposite corner. He has to be because of the rotations. Instead of moving the ball, Lou started dribbling right away and the defense recovered. The ball has to be moved quickly on the perimeter to make teams pay for double teaming Brand. Has to. This is something they need to work on in practice. Also, someone needs to remove the glue from Willie Green's hands. If I see him dribbling at the top of the key for no apparent reason again I'm going to wind up throwing my remote through my TV.
Raptors played pretty good defense. Gotta give them that. They didn't rebound, but they did a pretty good job contesting shots.
The Raptors are a team with severe limitations though. Their entire bench is really poor. Kapono played well, but overall he is a poor player. No one else appears to be able to play from what I have seen.(only 1 game from Ukic)
Sixers looked bad, but all they need to do is cut the TOs, step up the D, and make the 2 footers they were missing.(they did those things last season) If those things happened, the Sixers would have won by double digits easily.
All the problems are correctable. My only fear is Willie. Rush is even better than him probably and Rush is bad historically.
Activate Speights, deactivate Theo. This MUST be done.
Let the kid play.
We know how well that turned out for us last season.
Hopefully with Ivey back from suspension we have another steady ball handler to cut down on the TOs. I have never liked Willie to be truthful, I rather have Ivey and Lou on the court together.
It was a bad first loss but it's a long season.