The Philadelphia 76ers are worth the price of admission. There's no doubt about that statement right now. When they're bad, and they've had some horrible stretches in the first two games, it's like watching a trainwreck. Their glaring weakness is laid bare on nearly every play. Doug Collins is helpless to stop it. But when they're good, they're electric. We had a taste of both in tonight's
Let's start with the rotation chart and four factors:
It's getting late and I still have a preview to write for tomorrow's game, so this is going to be brief. Watching this team attempt to defend, actually forget even defending, watching them trying to compete with Spencer Hawes on the floor is complete torture. Hawes is everything I thought he'd be, and less. I realize this team has limited options at the five, but I have to believe every single one of them would be far preferable to Hawes at this point and I'm hoping Collins comes to this realization sooner rather than later. If I never see another one of his soft hooks in the lane again it'll be too soon.
On the other hand, though, Nocioni has been a revelation through the first two games. Much, much, much better than I thought he'd be. Now we're only two games in, and there are definitely chinks in his mullet armor, but overall, he's been a positive on the floor. Still, we're only two games in so I'm kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop on Nocioni and by the same token, Hawes has an opportunity to improve.
Whatever Collins saw from the starting lineup with Kapono in there obviously hasn't materialized. Kapono started the first quarter, played just under 8 minutes, then never returned to the game. Collins even made the unthinkable move of changing up his starting lineup at the beginning of the third quarter, inserting Nocioni for Kapono. Unfortunately, Hawes was still in there (11 shots, I believe 4 of them were blocked for Hawes).
Anyway, for the first three quarters, the Sixers defense seemed so pitiful I was amazed every time I looked up and saw the deficit was hovering right around ten points. Andre Iguodala was the reason. He put this team on his back and kept them in it on both ends of the floor. It was great to see him put together a game like this after basically taking a backseat through the preseason and the opener.
In the fourth, I saw the Sixers team that went to the playoffs two years in a row. They applied relentless pressure on the ball, wreaking havoc on Atlanta's offense, forcing turnovers and converting those turnovers into easy points on the other end.
I touched on this prior to the season beginning, and it's counter-intuitive to a degree, but the best way for the Sixers to cover up their abhorrent interior defense is to pressure the hell out of the ball. I mean badger the ballhandler out by midcourt, double him, trap him, use every pick as an automatic double and lock down on the first pass out. Sagging back to cover for the pitiful bigs isn't going to help, it's going to lead to foul trouble for your smalls and wide open jumpers, and it still isn't going to slow down a halfway decent offensive big. The best way, the only way to minimize the damage of the interior game when your bigs are this bad is to do everything you can to keep the ball from even getting to them. Go small, go quick, and make every offensive set an complete dogfight for the opponent. Worst case, the perimeter guy gets burned off the dribble and gets an easy look at a layup. How much worse is that outcome than letting them walk the ball up and pick the mismatch of their liking?
A couple bullets for points I didn't touch on above:
- It always amazes me when defenders bit on Lou's pump fake from 20 feet, but man did he have the Hawks on the hook tonight. 13 FTA for Lou, great production.
- I'm having a hard time figuring out why Turner was the fourth guy off the bench after his debut on Wednesday. Not a strong showing tonight for ET.
- Jrue followed up his poor opener with a poor shooting second game, but he was still a positive on the floor. 8 points, 4 boards, 4 dimes, 2 steals, 1 block and most importantly, 0 turnovers. His minutes were limited by foul trouble in the first half. He played some excellent man defense during the Sixers run in the fourth. He's going to be just fine.
- Elton Brand looks born again hard.
Player of The Game: Andre Iguodala (27 points, 6 boards, 10 assists, 2 steals, 1 block, 3 turnovers)
Team Record: 0-2
Next Up: @ Indy Saturday night
Check out the game capsule for this loss
here.
I can't believe Hawes is this bad, though he did go against 2 athletic 4 types [Horford and Anthony] and it will be interesting tonight against a true 5 [Hibbert]. I want to see 24 minutes and 10 and 6 at least, with a block mixed in.
I expect Collins to start Nucioni tonight, even though we want Evan; he seems to want to start the vets, though I feel Elton and Iggy fit the bill.
Does Meeks get any time this year? He is another young piece worth a look but where are there minutes?
No quit in the coach. No quit in the team. I hope the coach lasts through the season because their will be many games like this one. This seemed to be a 10 point game forever. Under last years leadership they would've folded at the end of the 2nd qtr. What a difference a year/Coach makes.
I didn't get to see the game last night. What's up with Turner only getting 19 minutes? From the box score it looks like Nocioni had a good game. Does that warrant sitting our future on the bench?
It means that Thad and Turner are going to have to play theiur ass off to take the minutes from Nocioni...which is how it should be.
Could not agree more. If you want the minutes - prove it.
Didn't Evan Turner prove in game 1 he deserves more minutes? I'm trying to justify it on the fact that we are playing a back to back tonight and he wants ET to be fresh for tonights game so i'm hoping he'll get more minutes tonight.
Little off topic, but this has to be the first year that the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th pick all came off the bench to start the year right?
Off the top of my head, I can't remember another year where that happened. Favors > Cousins, btw :)
Last year was also very interesting, the 1st 2nd 3rd pick all failed make an impact, obviously Blake was injured, but only Tyreke Evans started out of the top 5 drafted.
I don't think the word rebound has been mentioned above.
The Sixers can't do it. They are losing tons of possessions.
How are they competing? They are winning the TO differential battle.
Will it last? Can they keep limiting turnovers this much? I don't think so.
The Sixers can't do it. They are losing tons of possessions.
Of course they can't, they got rid of their best (only?) interior rebounding presence for a soft doughy useless center and a mullet
Well, we're only talking about 2 games here. In the first, they actually lost the turnover battle, but won on the boards. Last night it was the opposite.
I expect them to be out-rebounded most nights (unless Turner starts playing 35+ minutes/game, then it's a crap shoot).
Link to blog on Nocioni starting:
http://www.phillyburbs.com/opinions/blogs/intell_blogs/intell_blogs_details/article/634/2010/october/30/collins-changes-starting-lineup.html
The team's energy reminds me of the Sixers a few years back. Early in that year they had a bad record, but you could tell that they would turn it around eventually.
But we are only 2 games in- so it remains to be seen if this year's team can keep their head up and fight through the losses. If they do, and Thorn brings in an interior defender, this will evolve into a pesky low seed playoff team.
Either way, its hard to imagine they will lose more than 50 games if they continue to bring this level of effort.
The inconsistency of that effort is the most frustrating for me. They just waltzed through the last half of the 1st quarter and the whole 2nd quarter. Then when it seems they finally realized they are up against the wall when it pertains to time/score, they turned it up a few notches.
The crowd participation is really understated. I know some may not believe in that but trust me it helps - a ton. At least it did for former teams I was able to be a part of.
On another note, as much fun as last night was I'm all for that "pesky, low seed playoff team" you mentioned.
But at the same time, I often ask myself is this just the same old dreadful just-good-enough-not-to-be-bad but not-bad-enough-to-get-good type of team? That mediocrity heaven thing?
"•I'm having a hard time figuring out why Turner was the fourth guy off the bench after his debut on Wednesday. Not a strong showing tonight for ET."
My guess on this is, he isn't suited for the shooting guard spot (hopefully yet), so Andre has most of the minutes on lock at that position and when he doesn't then Lou is more suited for that spot. So with Jrue having a decent showing in the 1st quarter and Evan being more suited at the PG spot at this point, there was nowhere else for him to come in the game because I don't think they believe he can play the 3.
Now, I know you would say that they could just shift Dre over to the 3 and let Evan come in at the 2 when yanking Kapono early like last night. So who knows, guess it just goes back to the staff knowing ET's not comfortable/capable at that 2-guard spot yet.
For some unknow reason I feel the team flows better when ET is on the court(heat game as an exemple).. I understand he is a rookie learning the game and that he doesn t have the stroke to be a classical SG but damn, let the kid play !
I'd almost buy this logic, but Turner is barely playing the point when he's in there, no matter who he's in there with. Lou has been playing a ton of PG, and even when the backcourt was Iguodala and Turner, they were sharing the PG position, Iguodala may have even been playing more PG.
Impressive outing for the Sixers. So far Nocioni looks like the Nocioni from the bulls a few years back. Hawes is soft(as expected) but perhaps they can find a role for him. Thad ? Id like to see him take it to the hole a lot more, his outside shot is mediocre.
Overall, encouraging effort,--its a work in progress. Hopefully we will see a lot more turner tonight.
Wish I saw the game last night. Living in DC is fun but I need my philly sports. Gotta get the slingbox working.
Looks like the long practices have got our conditioning up where we are the better team in the 4th quarter. I like this team, just wish we could have someone other than Hawes in there. I'll take more Battie because Hawes is sucking. Speights is getting tough love right now because he has sooooo many bad habbits that Collins is trying to correct. Speights will start for this team and he'll be a good player at the end of the year, imo.
I like the feel of this team. I think teams are not going to look forward to playing us because we bring a lot of energy and we'll scrap til the last whistle. I see this team being the 8 seed at the end of the year.
Mine freezes too much to watch the games.
I really think the Sixers aren't as close as everyone thinks. We have been benefiting from the fact we are shooting very well from downtown and if it wasn't for the 5-7 from 3 in the 4th quarter vs the heat it's a loss of 25-30 points. I don't see a half court offense still and without it we will still be stuck at the bottom of the league.