As we
covered yesterday, the Sixers have been more than good on their home floor. In order to make a move on the #6 seed, or maybe just to secure any playoff spot at all, they need to be better on the road. Forget being a good road team, they don't even need to reach that level, but is it too much to ask for them to be average? Somewhere near .500? I don't think so. Either way, Toronto is a team you have to be able to beat, no matter where you're playing.
Here are the game capsules from the
first and
second meetings against the Raptors, both losses.
As for tonight's game, the Raptors have dropped eight straight games, but that streak may not be completely indicative of the basketball they've been playing. Half of those losses have been tight, tight affairs (sound familiar?). The Raptors have a bunch of injuries that should help the Sixers. Both Reggie Evans and his younger clone, Joey Dorsey, are expected to miss the game tonight. Jose Calderon, who has carved the Sixers up with his three-point shooting in the past, and Leandro Barbosa who drools whenever he sees Lou Williams on the opposing bench, are both questionable. Of course, when a team is as bad as Toronto, the drop off from their front line players to the backups sometimes isn't that severe.
Ed Davis has been very impressive in this 20 minutes/game. He's seeing more time. Jerryd Bayless is coming off an impressive 15/8/11 game in his spot start for Calderon on Sunday, and they've also got Andrea Bargnani, the world's softest center/the world's tallest small forward. He's terrible, but he is a matchup problem for the Sixers, especially when Spencer Hawes is on the floor.
If I'm game planning against the Raptors, I put a smaller guy on Bargnani. I'd rather force him to work around the hoop on offense than let him roam around on the perimeter knocking down threes while a big guy is pulled away from he hoop to ineffectively cover him.
On the offensive end, the Sixers can pretty much pick from a number of mismatches. Jrue shouldn't have too much trouble with Bayless, Iguodala has size on DeRozan, strength on Julian Wrigth, depending on how they decide to play that matchup. Brand should be able to push Amir Johnson around.
Toronto has the second-worst defense in the league, they foul too much, they don't rebound well, they don't force many turnovers, they don't defend the three well. Basically everything you can do poorly on the defensive end, Toronto does worse than poorly. The Sixers should be able to win this game with their offense alone, if they can play a halfway decent defensive game, it shouldn't even be close.
Prediction: PHI 112, TOR 97
Tip is at 7:00 pm, game thread will be up 90 minutes prior.
I'm usually an eternal optimist but I think the Sixers lose this game in typical last-two-minutes heartbreaking fashion. The probably partied last night in Toronto, so they'll be sluggish all game, and it will be close. Lou will kill us with his patented isolations followed by bad shots at the end, and we blow it. Thankfully, the Sixers seem to always be able to bounce back so I think we're still headed for a big run over the next 15 games.
The game has Lou written all over it. Good Lou and we win :)
Personally, I'd like to see a game with Jrue written all over it. Just so it doesn't continue to seem like he's disappearing since Iguodala's return.
Jrue is going to have less of an impact against a team like this.
por que?
Lou is better than Jrue at blowing by his man and finishing at the rim. Overall, Lou is the better pure scorer. Lou also can play to his strengths without being as exposed.
Jrue is more important when you don't want the Deron's and Nash's of the world to dominate the game through penetration. While the Raptors get assists through setting "bad" shots. So its not like Jrue really needs to take them out of their offense. It's more on the other guys to not over-help and properly contest the long jumpers.
Well, I took the plunge. Just bought my ticket for this, actually pretty excited, which I know makes me a geek on most levels.
Oh cool. Are you gonna talk to D.Morey and ask him what exactly he's doing with his roster?
Great, we will start needing translations along with your posts :)
YOU BASTARD
They didn't put up any of the PDF's from last years presenations either - i freaking emailed the professor who did the 'blocked shots' presentation as it's a theory i had for years - but he never got back to me :)
Yes, I'm jealous you go to that
You had that theory for years. Interesting. Have you ever heard of the personality disorder called narcissism? :)
Nope - never heard of it - not even when i had a paranoid narcissist mother I still haven't heard of it.
However, I have heard of this world wide disease spreading where people have no sense of humor - many of them become dentists
I'd love to see the Sixers start Thad for Hawes this game. No reason not to.
Agreed. I'd prefer him on Bargnani over Hawes anyway.
didn't bargns destroy Thad earlier this season?
I can't fathom how Hawes would have done better.
My concern is that once a player gets hot he's harder to slow down. And if you guard a perimeter player with Brand or Thad, you will get easy looks and a better chance the player heats up.