This season, and this team, have become a horrible, horrible punchline to a joke that isn't all that funny. Eddie Jordan coached this game to win tonight. 100%, he was pulling all the strings he could to get a W. The players weren't exactly lazy out there, they just have absolutely nothing to fall back on. Their systems are flawed, their priorities are out of whack and to top it off, the wrong players are on the floor at the wrong time. Andre Iguodala is lost, Elton Brand is resigned, Sam Dalembert is clueless, Willie Green and Lou Williams are useless, Marreese Speighs is still hurt. Anything and everything that can possibly be wrong with this team, is. And I can only hope that things stay like this for another 13 games.
Two positives to take away from this game, then your rotation chart, then bed:
- The loss dropped the Sixers to the 8th-worst record in the league.
- I hope we're in for about a decade of Toney Douglas and Jrue Holiday going head-to-head. I love the way these kids play the game and it'd be great to see a rivalry develop between two young guards. It'd be even better if both teams were actually good, but that may be asking too much.
I haven't read Jordan's post-game comments, but I can only assume that he said something like, "The team competed for 48 minutes." I'm sorry, but that's complete B.S. If you compete vs. the Cavs and come out on the wrong end, fine. They're clearly a better team. I don't care how much effort you put forth against this putrid Knicks team, you should be able to sleepwalk through the game and get a W, if you're trying to. From a basketball perspective, look at one thing from this game. The Sixers gave up 15 offensive rebounds to a team that was missing their only rebounder. Without Lee, the Knicks don't have any semblance of an interior presence. Eddie Jordan's response to these facts was to use a small lineup for 23 minutes total, and the final 18 minutes of the game. A cynical man might also point out that Jason Kapono was on the floor for the final 6:20 of what was mostly a one-possession game coming down the stretch. You may also be interested to learn that Andre Iguodala and Jrue Holiday didn't sit for a second after the half, and tallied 43 and 42 minutes, one the first night of a back-to-back.
Player of The Game: Jrue., 15 points on 12 shots, 8 boards, 2 dimes, 2 steals and 2 turnovers. He had a rough turnover down the stretch when he probably would've been better off forcing up a shot against the shot clock. This was in his 24th consecutive minute of action though, so I'll cut him a little slack.
Team Record: 24-45
Up Next: Chicago Bulls, Saturday night at the Wach.
I am happy for the loss but it amazes me that a coach who runs the P.O. can!t give his players ways to pick apart a zone. Joran actually accepted blame, first time?, after this one. Agree about the p.g.!s, a rivalry would be nice; Douglas is what L.Will. could be if he decided to defend.
Jordan: "I could've done a better job substituting down the stretch. That was on me. I probably could've had us more prepared against the zone."
Iguodala has taken the 33rd-most 3-point attempts in the league and has the lowest 3-point percentage of anybody in the top 35 (28.5% -- Kobe is next at 31.4).
There are only four players with 200-plus 3-point attempts shooting below 30.0%:
Baron Davis 28.2
Rasheed 28.4
Iguodala 28.5
D-Wade 29.7
He's also shooting 1-of-26 from downtown in the last seven games.
Last night was the second game of the season I didn't watch in its entirety. The Sixers are just having a hard time holding my interest while the tournament is on. I caught maybe 10 minutes of it, mostly at the beginning.
Did Elton Brand really only grab 3 rebounds in 33+ minutes? We held them to 36.8% shooting, only comitted 11 turnovers, and lost to the David Lee'less Knicks.
Sacramento may have blown an 8 point lead late and lost Tyreke Evans, but I still like our chances.
A positive from last night was that I'd rather see Jrue make mistakes down the stretch in meaningless games and keep his confidence then hide him from the spotlight. Hopefully he learns from this and grows into being a good closer.
As for The Race, it seems like the worst of both worlds if we continue to lose and yet end up somewhere around the 8th pick. But I guess there is still reason to hope for a top 3 pick... I'm just not able to get that invested in losses.
If they win, fine. Worrying about these last 2 weeks is sort of like blaming a game's loss on the last 2 minutes, when many of the crucial plays happened earlier int the game. The team could have made critical rebuilding decisions much earlier in the season (like getting rid of Ed's.) Instead we have to hope for major luck to get a top 3 pick.
The only positives that can come out of this season:
1. Possibility of franchise altering talent if they win the lottery.
2. Possibility of franchise shaping GM if the get a guy like Pritchard or maybe Penn.
3. Learned a few things about the roster. Jrue should be the future at PG, Lou is not. Brand is a mediocre NBA player. The team does not have nearly the talent level (realized or potential) that they thought. EJ cannot coach this team.
100% agree.
Jordan is an absolute incompentent coach. He obviously thinks he knows how to coach with his rotations. What an complete idiot. Sorry, but I had to say this and I hope Ed S. fires him today. He is just destroying these guys.
I've heard Pritchard may be on the outs in Portland. Would anyone be interested in him if he came here? I personally think he's a little overrated, but he's an interesting name no doubt. Definitely better than what we have now.
He builds a team correctly.
He dumps guys with bad contracts (Zach Randolph.)
He acquires as many draft picks as possible, inclusing several high lottery picks.
Sure he does not make correct decisions 100% of the time, but he keeps his options open and only gives big long term deals to young players (Miller was signed to only 2 guaranteed years.) That way if he makes a mistake he can change course quickly.
Like with Aldride... sure some people hate him, but it would be easy to deal him away. Not like over signing a vet like Brand.
Disagree on Aldridge, that was a bad signing in my opinion. Also think Pritchard is too smart for his own good. Over thinking things to the point where he's too hesitant to make deals. It'd also be nice if he listened to an injury warning at least once in the draft as well.
One of Pritchards 'tricks' is to take talented guys who are high injury risks that other teams pass on and hope those risks don't follow through (you know, like oden and roy who have been healthy most of their nba careers)
Agree with all except Brand. He's not great, but he's above mediocre... and he's definitely not one of main reasons we're losing 2 out of 3 games this season. We have a lousy, lousy, lousy head coach (as you mentioned) and only four guys on the ENTIRE TEAM who play any defense at all. Brand is obviously one of them, so I take my hat off to him. Jrue, Iggy, and (gasp) Sammy as well. God, look at every single other player... just awful, non-existent, matador style defense from every one of them.
Brand is old and he can't move particularly well anymore, but he still finds a way to be fairly productive on the court. Honestly, we need to trade Lou, Thad, and Marreese, assuming they still have value, so we can replace them with players who play both ends of the stinkin' court. Add a decent coach and we might actually have something here.