The Sixers were all business on Christmas, fitting in a practice in preparation for tonight's season opener in Portland. They planned another in the morning on the left coast. As a preview today, let's take a look at what the Sixers need to accomplish on the defensive end tonight.
OK, so the first step is going to be identifying what you don't want the Blazers to get. This is pretty simple for their starters. Three keys: (1) No open threes for Wes Matthews, (2) Keep LaMarcus Aldridge out of the paint. (3) Limit Gerald Wallace's drives.
The first is self-explanatory, and probably not all that difficult to do. Force Matthews to drive, don't leave him on rotations. He's the guy you have to mark, and don't help off him. Meeks will have the matchup, to start, keep an eye on whether he's wandering off Matthews.
Aldridge is tricky. He really turned things around last year in terms of shot selection. Well, maybe that's not really accurate. In the past, he was a guy who took a ton of long twos. Last season, he upped his FGA by 2.5/game, and almost all of those added attempts came in the paint. His long twos were pretty much the same, but as a percentage of his total attempts, they dropped. The goal here is to get Aldridge to fall in love with the long two. It's counter-intuitive, but the best way to accomplish it is to make it easy for him early in the game. Give him the pop on the pick-and-pop and hope he drains two or three early jumpers. If he's on from long range, he'll settle for them the rest of the night instead of going to work on the blocks. I've seen it happen time and time again with him. Give him a taste and he can't resist.
Gerald Wallace is a different animal altogether. When he's on and he's getting the ball, he can be impossible to contain. He's one of the few wings who has the strength to drive through Iguodala. The best thing to do is deny him the ball, if he gets it, back off and dare him to shoot jumpers. Wallace isn't a high-usage guy, and I kind of doubt Portland is going to be looking to go at Iguodala. Play it smart and keep him off the offensive glass and this shouldn't be too hard to accomplish.
Aldridge and Wallace combined for 11.3 shots at the rim per game last year, keep that number in the single digits, that would be a good start.
Rumor has it, Portland is going to try to run this season. Whether they're speaking relatively or literally is up for debate, because they were dead last in the league in pace last season. If they are committed to running, run right with them. This is something new for Portland and with the abbreviated preseason, they're going to have serious growing pains. The faster the pace, the better for the Sixers, especially considering Aldridge needs to log huge minutes for them, and Camby is their other legit big. Let them run their bigs right out of the game, and capitalize on the turnovers they'll surely have if they up the pace.
The tip is at 10pm, Eastern. Our very first game thread will be up at 5pm.
One final thing to keep an eye on, which bench player gets the most minutes tonight? My money is on Turner.
First real game thread of the year, and long overdue. Lets hope for those of us planning on staying awake for the late start, they come out more like the fist scrimmage then the second.
Not a whole lot new in the Inquirer's game season preview today, but their reader poll did have some interesting results:
Q - How far will the 76ers advance this season?
2% (2 votes) Miss the playoffs
31% (33 votes) Lose in first round of playoffs
59% (62 votes) Lose in second round of playoffs
8% (9 votes) Contend for NBA title
^ not a huge sample size but at least it kind of shows where expectations are...
An interesting quote by Collins on comcast this morning after talking about how winning and building the value of his young players will possibly help make a free agent come play here.
" There will be no sideway moves here, we WILL stick to our plan". It hopefully lets us know that no quick fix to win now is coming and hopefully they will add to our young core rather than trade it for one player.
Interesting quote by Thorn:
"You can't get a star just because you want one," Thorn said. "With us, we had no chance to get Dwight Howard. No. 1, even if we could make a trade with Orlando, they were going to take all our good players, so he wouldn't want to play here. You have to be in a position where you've got enough players where you can make that one trade."
Interesting how? Interesting in the way 'wow that's interesting that the GM is stating the obvious'?
Well it's interesting in the sense that some people here (I believe Brian is included in this group) would trade Holiday/Turner for Howard. Thorn is basically saying he won't do this (at least that's how I read it). Seems important to me.
Glad to be back discussing the Sixers and the NBA.
Here's an interesting trivia question to carry you over until tonight: what NBA player began his career by being named top rookie, and in the first two years of his career led the league in field goal percentage, finished second in PPG (averaging over 21 PPG) and win shares, and was named first-team All-NBA ... and then never played another game?
i just found the answer by wikipedia'ing all past rookie of the year winners, so i won't spoil it for someone who actually knows
Brandon Roy.
Brian are we gonna have 10 game predictions like last year? Or maybe a different number?
Not sure about the first 10 games but for the first 5 road games i'm gonna be optimistic and go 3-2. Anything below that i guess will be underachievement and over that - overachievement and a great result.
Oh yeah i envision losses at Portland and Utah and wins at New Orleans and Phoenix. The GSW game is difficult, but i will go with the Sixers "continuity" over Marc Jackson.
So - what's your appetizer tonight?
Rockets/Magic (Sam isn't playing)
Pistons/Pacers
Bucks/Bobcats
Nets/Wizards
Raptors/Cavs
I'm tempted to watch the Raptors as they are the only atlantic division team I haven't seen play at all this year.
Sixers / Heat Game 4 first round 2011 playoffs :)
What worries me the most about portland is their height and ability to rebound. LA has a huge height advantage over brand and EB typically struggles against taller players, especially if they can shoot. Camby is another tall guy who eats up offensive rebounds. Hawes will have his hands full there. And lastly they have gerald wallace who is arguably the greatest rebounder in the nba. Since were a team that struggles at defensive rebounding this will be a big challenge for us.
And lastly they have gerald wallace who is arguably the greatest rebounder in the nba
Who makes that argument?
I do. Considering he is a small forward and spends a lot of time getting back on defense in offensive rebounding opportunities and leaking out on the fast break in defensive rebounding opportunities, the amount of rebounds he gets per game is absurd.
Brand may be listed at 6'9" but he has a freakish wingspan so LA does not have a huge height advantage at only 6'10" or 6'11". Portland is going to run into difficulty if they try to outrun us and they don't have a reputable half-court game. There's also their lack of depth behind Felton, who is still acclimating himself to his new team. Like Brian said, they will need to play LA heavy minutes and probably quite a bit at the 5 with Wallace at the 4. Camby and Kurt Thomas have no chance of keeping up.
That's a good point about Brand's wing span. I never knew that about him. He actually has a bigger wing span than LA and they both have a 9-2 standing reach. Interestingly, Hawes also has a 9-2 standing reach and Vuceivic has the highest out of everybody with a 9-5 standing reach. Although Camby is probably higher (I can't find the exact number).
Portland actually has one of the most efficient half-court games in the NBA.
They also added Jamal Crawford to their team, which gives them a big time scorer off the bench.
One of the few advantages we have is Jrue Holiday vs Raymond Felton, like you said. Felton, although he has good chemistry with Wallace from their Charlotte days, will need to learn the offense. Holiday has shown star potential. This team will go as far as Jrue carries it.
Been hard to read these last few days, but great preview Brian. Tonight is a great end to the holiday weekend.