The Sixers impressed tonight with their play, to be sure, but what was perhaps more impressive was their energy. On the second night of a back-to-back, against a bad team, with a series of games against strong teams on the horizon, the Sixers showed a relentless focus and put the Pistons away for their 14th win of the season. (
game capsule).
Here's your rotation chart. Notice the runs at the beginning and end of the fourth quarter. The first made it a laugher, the second was tear-worthy:
Tonight was the Sixers 8th win by 20 or more points, and it followed essentially the same pattern as the previous 7. It all started on the defensive end, where the Sixers absolutely smothered the Pistons and when they didn't force a turnover, they coerced the Pistons into taking poor shots. Lawrence Frank did the right thing early in feeding Greg Monroe in the post, but the Sixers were ready for it. They used Tony Battie, Elton Brand and Lavoy Allen on him, but sent multiple defenders at him whenever he caught the ball. Monroe was either incapable of, or unwilling to move the ball out of the double and triple teams, and wound up shooting 6/19 from the floor for 16 points. On the perimeter, Jrue drew Brandon Knight and positively stoned him. Knight shot 4/17 for 9 points.
The defensive pressure stifled the Pistons, and more importantly, wore them out. After 36 minutes of having to scratch and claw for every contested look, Detroit completely broke in the beginning of the fourth and the Sixers put the game away with a 13-2 spurt. The only drama left at that point was whether Andre Iguodala would get the one rebound he needed to complete his triple-double on his 28th birthday. Collins reinserted Iguodala, he grabbed a board on the first play and the rest was nearly unwatchable and completely meaningless.
Without Hawes and the Voose, the Sixers finished the four-game cupcake portion of this home stand with a 3-1 record. They improved their league-leading point differential, extended their lead over the Celtics to 4 games (7 games over the Knicks and the Nets) and moved to 8-games over .500 on the season. Things will get harder for a little while now, but it's tough to say the Sixers haven't taken care of business to this point of the season.
Player of The Game: Iguodala. 10/10/10 and 1 turnover on his birthday gets the nod. On any other night, Lou would've had a shot with his relentless attack on the offensive end and had anyone been able to hit an open jumper on a pass from Jrue, he would've been in the running as well, because his defense was truly top-notch.
Team Record: 14-6
Up Next: vs. Orlando, Monday night.
Another great, team win. Now do it again.
Some quick numbers for why it makes sense for Meeks (and not ET) to play reasonable minutes in between Jrue and Iguodala:
Meeks/Turner:
Usage 13.1/20.8
TS% 60.4%/49.6
eFG% 57.4%/46.6
3pt% 41.4%/21
16-23: 47%/30
Ortg 120/97
WS/48: 0.175/0.119
The goal is not to have the 5 best individual talents on the floor. The goal is to maximize your best players. If you have a dominant post center then you don't put a bunch of other post players on the floor with him. And if your 2 best players are Iguodala and Jrue you put a low usage (non-ball dominant) shooter between them.
So the question is not whether ET should be getting Meeks' minutes, because ET cannot fill that role at all. The question is whether ET is good enough to get some of Iguodala, Jrue or Lou's minutes- because that is more the type of position he plays.
If ET is good enough then maybe the team should trade away Iguodala or Lou for some other needed talent. But he is not Meeks' competition. You can argue the team needs an upgrade to Meeks- but that would be another shooter who is a superior defender... it is not ET.
The team can have success with J/T/I as a closing unit when all 3 go into breakdown mode to try and win with defense and individual scoring down the stretch. But I don't see how that works over the full starters complement of minutes. You need some balance. Jrue shooting helps, but do you really want to change Jrue into a spot up shooter while Iguodala and ET drive? Is that maximizing his talent?
I don't mind Jodie starting but I don't think he should play as many minutes as he does. He has padded his stats against shitty teams, Atlanta was the only decent team he has scored in the double digits against. But I agree with your logic for the most part. His shooting percentages have been very good since his early season slump.
Here is one advanced statistic I have a problem with - how does Jodie Meeks have more Win Shares than Turner, or especially Jrue Holiday? Do the turnovers bring Jrue and Turner down?
Going into tonight's game:
Jodie - 1.8 / .175 per 48
Turner - 1.2 / .119 per 48
Jrue - 1.6 / .116 per 48
I'm sorry but there is no way that Jodie Meeks has contributed more wins to this team than Jrue. Probably not even Turner. Maybe I'm just dumber than I thought I was, but I don't get that one.
I agree that the Sixers need an upgrade at SG. I just think that upgrade should be a shooter.
or trade away Iguodala and replace him with an athletic SF who can shoot.
Iguodala for Wes Johnson and Love (http://games.espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=7txret2 )
Wes Johnson doesn't fit the bill at all. Though I'd make the trade.
Yeah, you don't make the rtrade for Wes. He is sort of filler. And a guy you hope could maybe become a productive player on a team where his role was much more simplified. I'm sure Meeks would put up terrible numbers on that team- but on the Sixers they let him play to his limited strengths.
I think Johnson has an extremely simple role there. Just isn't that good a shooter.
Like pretty much all advanced stats, it's imperfect. He gets credit for the team defense he plays, even though he's not a big contributor to their high level of defense, so he gets a bonus there. The offensive numbers, though, he never turns the ball over and he's an unbelievably efficient scorer.
"Jrue's shooting helps, but do you really want to change Jrue into a spot-up shooter while Iguodala and ET drive?"
As a matter of fact, yes. Yes, I do.
"Is that maximizing his (Jrue, I assume you mean) talent?"
I am not sure, but I do think that it maximizes the talent that we can put out on the floor. And let's face it, at least in my mind, Jrue has had some of his biggest impact on games when he has been not a Jason Kidd-like run-the-offense PG, but when he has scored the ball. He LIKES to score the ball. He seems to LOVE hitting the big 3 - like he did in DWade's grill in Game 4 last spring.
So let him do that.
I don't understand what the big f'n hangup is with Jrue spending a healthy portion of his time on offense off of the ball. Turner has as good of a handle as Jrue does. Both Turner and Iguodala are excellent facilitators and passers. And in terms of the other parts of the game, like rebounding and defense (the parts of the game that you may not need a ton of to beat Charlotte and Detroit, but you will need a TON of to beat Chicago and Miami), Turner's edge over guys like Meeks and Lou is so large that it is laughable.
I would hope that Collins is smart enough to see that this team simply does not have basketball bandwidth to waste on the bench...not so much when they are playing the dregs of the league, but when they are playing the elite teams. That is why Turner's minutes against the Heat and Nuggets bother me so much. ET was CLEARLY the best player on the floor in the 1st half against the Heat...not only aggressive scoring the ball, but playing credible D on LBJ - just like he did for stretches in the playoffs last spring. Leaving him on the bench in the 3rd quarter until the Heat had already gotten their mojo working was a BRUTAL mistake by Collins IMO, and - along with Voose's injury - was the reason we got blown out in the 2nd half of that game. I STILL have no idea why Collins played Meeks so much against the Nuggets , 'cause he was getting ROASTED on D...and if he is not hitting the 3, he is a MAJOR liability on the floor against good teams. At least Turner can rebound and play D. Once Collins went to a backcourt of Jrue and ET, Lawson's impact on the game ended.
The other problem that Collins must see is that when he goes to JTI in the guts of the game (which I think he must), when you factor in that Hawes or Voose will probably get minutes as well (depending on matchups), that means that Lou will be on the bench at crunchtime...and Lou doesn't like that.
"Ugly triple-double" :)
Pathetic, even :)
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