If you've had a sinking deja vu feeling over the past week or so as a Sixers fan, there's a reason. This has all happened before.
April 5, 2008 - Sixers are in 6th place at 39-37. They
lose to the Atlanta Hawks. My quote at the time:
From the beginning, this seemed to be the Hawks night. Actually, to be
fair, from the start the Hawks just seemed to want this one more,
especially Josh Smith and Joe Johnson.
April 11, 2008 - Sixers have beaten Detroit to get to 40 wins, then they
lose to Indiana. My quote at the time:
Rodney Carney (1/11), Lou Williams (2/12) and Willie Green (2/14)
should be absolutely ashamed of themselves for their performance
tonight.
April 12, 2008 - The Sixers
lose to the Washington Wizards. My quote at the time:
Just an immensely disappointing loss at an extremely inopportune time.
April 14, 2008 - The Sixers
lose a heart-breaker to Cleveland on a phantom call at the buzzer. Hmmn, they play well against the good teams, get killed by the bad teams, sound familiar? My quote at the time:
We now pause this recap because the refs are trying to hand the game to
the Cavs. Two free throws on a B.S. call after the buzzer. We will
resume the post-game after the robbery is complete.
April 17, 2008 - The Sixers
lose to the Bobcats. Mo Cheeks decides to rest his starters, but still finds a way to get Iguodala 36 minutes of playing time. The Sixers fell behind by 23 points before mounting a pointless rally. My quote at the time:
As for tonight, it was really 48 minutes of garbage time, which
obviously means it was Willie's time to shine. GT Green launched a
modest 21 shots, hitting 11 of them and finishing with 27 points to
lead the Sixers in scoring.
In summation, the Sixers lost 5 of their final six games. They were 39-37, with 6 games to go and had a legit shot at the number 5 seed. They backed their way into #7. I do believe that the Cleveland loss was beneficial. It created an
us vs. them mentality that they'd take into the playoffs. I guess we should hope for something like that to happen in the final 2 games.
I knew we would suck when Thad went down, but it's more the manner of the losses that really bugs me.
It's one thing to get beaten by better teams. It's another to see your players not give a shit out there.
does the team not give a shit or do they just suck and require at least one of their players who constantly kill the team(take your pick green, williams, dalembert) to have a great night in order to win ? That would certainly explain for the lack of consistency...
I am liking Lou more and more each game, guys. Coach:"Overall, I didn't like our chemistry on the court or how we were in synch on the court, offensively and defensively," Dileo said. "We weren't on the same page.
Williams said the chemistry isn't the problem. "We're 80 games in," Williams said. "If we don't have chemistry by now, this is how we're going to play."
Finally a sixer to state the facts we all are screaming about.
I have officially jumped off our coach's bandwagon, time for a new coach next near!
Had Brand been hurt early, Cheeks would still be the coach because he'd have continued the uptempo style from the second half of last year, rather than catering to Brand too much by putting the ball in his hands and using too many half-court sets. I don't mean that as a knock on DiLeo.
As for Williams, I just wish he tried to play a little defense.
I mean, you make a (supposedly) superstar acquisition, a guy who used to receive top ten player in the league raves, you do tend to put the ball in his hands, at least for the first twenty games of his first season with you.
This brand thing is a good excuse on so many sides.
Point is he was never really in basketball shape, he wasn't integrated, and the coaching staff wasn't smart enough to figure out how to integrate him while still maintaining the strengths of the uptempo thing (yes it's possible).
Brand never struck me as a selfish give me the ball kind of guy - don't know him - just the impression i get - if a GOOD coach is hired in the off season (yes a coach MUST be hired in the off season and Tony MUST be sent back to do what he's good at) he'll sit down with the key pieces and tell them what he plans to do to work on all their strengths.
Though the likelihood of cost conscious Comcast hiring a good coach remains questionable to me.
That's the thing. Money. Another angle might be that they go the Cav's route and hire a savvy offensive coordinator (or should that be defensive coordinator)?
Well, cost-conscious Comcast did shell out a ton of cash last Summer.
I am not so sure I agree w/ your Cheeks thoughts but you obviously know more than I do about the team. I also don't mean to pick on DiLeo, just that I was a big, big supporter of him earlier this year and feel, as you specificcally warned, Tom, that I was wrong. I preach in my church that doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is stupid.
I am not saying that Lou is perfect but I really appreciate his effort. I do not feel putting your hand towards the player your defending is defense which I saw several times yesterday by everyone. Don't think Lou alone is the issue on defense! But, yes, he needs to work on his defense and 3 pt shot this summer.
Practice update: Young took part in a 3-on-3 half-court scrimmage after practice and said he thinks he can play tomorrow against the Celtics.
“It’s looking pretty good right now,” Young said. “I want to get at least a couple practices and couple games in before we get to the playoffs. I’ve got no pain at all, so that’s a good thing.”
DiLeo was not as optimistic (at least publicly).
Great news that there's no pain. I wonder if they'd bring him back for this one, or wait for the final game. Kinda doubt they'd bring him back and play him in a back-to-back to end the season.