Prior to Rajon Rondo's injury, the Celtics were 20-23 and looking their age. Since the injury, they've won 11 of 15 and they're seemingly the Celtics of old. Is Rondo's absence leading to better basketball or did the Celts simply run into a relatively easy portion of their schedule? Probably more of the latter. Tonight, the Sixers will look to bounce back from their loss to Washington (and the 34 that preceded it) against the team that ended their season last year.
First, a word on the Celts 11-4 stretch. The first win over the Heat was legit. After that, there really isn't a quality win in the bunch. They beat the Clips without Griffin and CP3. They beat the Nuggets in triple OT, but Igoudala was hurt. Their only decent road win came in Utah, in OT. They're playing better basketball, and they may continue to do so when the schedule stiffens, but this was a pretty cake stretch of games made easier by injuries to other teams.
Now, to tonight's game. I try not to swear during previews (I typically save salty language for the game threads), but this one is an exception. Pressure the shit out of the ball. The Celts don't have a point guard on their roster. Not one. I'm talk full court, all night. Don't let the Celts walk the ball up the floor. Make them work, make them dribble, and don't give them that easy release to Garnett at mid-court when you're pressuring them. If they get it across mid-court, trap. Avery Bradley and Courtney Lee are not point guards. Neither is Jason Terry. The only way Boston is able to get into their offensive sets in a timely manner is if you allow them to do so. I want to see full-court pressure. I want to see super-aggressive traps on the defensive end. The Celtics are a savvy bunch, they're going to break the pressure a couple times and probably get dunks or other easy looks as a result, but they're also without a handle on their active roster. The turnovers will come if you keep the pressure on, and their old legs will wear down.
On the offensive end, Jrue is going to draw Avery Bradley, which is fine if Jrue has the ball in his hands. He can handle the pressure. It's going to be a problem if Jrue is off the ball. Bradley is excellent at denying his man. Limit the nonsense of Turner bringing the ball up. Stay away from the Jrue/Pargo lineup, or if you must go to it, keep Jrue at the point. If you run him off the ball, it's either going to eat up 10 seconds with Jrue running all over the floor just to get the ball, or Turner is going to be throwing away entry passes to Hawes after failing to get the ball to Jrue on the wing.
If they're going to win, Jrue's shooting slump can last exactly one game. If he can't throw the ball in the ocean tonight, I don't see them having a chance. Of course, if you're rooting for the tank, just hope the exact opposite of everything I've just said happens.
The tip is at 7pm on TNT. Use this as your game thread, I'll be watching on DVR. By the way, when next season's schedule is released and the Sixers have one national game, don't complain. Just think about how the matchups panned out in their national games this year. The NBA should be stingy with their national exposure of this cursed franchise.
but if we have a certain "superstar" center next season...
I'm all for tanking but my hate for the Celtics will not allow my to root for a Sixers loss tonight.
Yeah, I guess there are certain games even most tankers don't want to lose. Man, I hate the Celts.
Sure would be nice to see if Lavoy and Moultrie can gang up on KG to keep him away from the paint...or will Doug just stick 00 in his face and tell him to foul six times then GTFO?
Doug will stick 00 in his face and tell him to watch as he burns the Sixers for a huge night.
God this blogname is becoming more and more spot on with the day. All this drama with Bynum's knees is making me nuts. Make him rehab in Phoenix or get Dr. Clark in so we can get this over with. Surgery won't fix anything.
What I find really depressing is that with all this losing, and we've been as bad as any lottery team recently, we're still currently picking 11th.
Sure is. Hard as it is to conceive, the fates have designed 10 NBA teams even worse than the Sixers to this point. According to the Sagarin Ratings, the Sixers are the 23rd best NBA team.
The good news from a tanking perspective is that they've played only the 25th best schedule so far, so maybe the supposedly rougher schedule remaining will allow them to sink a bit lower. The bottom 5 might be a bridge too far, though.
There's only 4 games between the sixers and the wiz/cavs who are currently 'tied' for the 3rd spot.
They can make up 4 games easy
pure conjecture but Jrue would be leading the League in dimes if anyone could hit a shot. just sayin, fools.
hawes give up o-board to garnett
aaaand the entire country will get to see 00 and his lose the tipoff, give up baskets game...does the court look brighter to anybody too?
yea think its tnt
TNT Hi Def is sooo grainy
et bailout 3
Good attack, Jrue.
Both teams hot out the gates.
nice jrue to hawes
KG with an early rest, Doug mirrors it with a Moultrie sub.
moultrie!
YES Moultrie early
Moultrie grinds for a basket.
Jrue drive and floater. They're getting in the lane at will.
jrue floater, keep attacking jrue
loving jrue's game tonight. i'm calling double digit assists. and loving moultrie!
Bynum meeting with Dr. Altchek all day today in New York.
moultrie dunk
Jrue to Moultrie for an oop. Jrue didn't even let Arnett set the screen though, he left too early.
jrue lob to ARNETT MOULTRIE!counting this first quarter and the last three games, moultrie is 9/9 from the field
Good hustle Thad.
..."Collins has had no problem with the effort of his team" WHAT??
fourteen points in the paint already.
Be interesting to see if when KG comes back in Doug also brings back Hawes.
Moultrie has right many lapses on D, just lost Wilcox for a lay-in.
dont post up wilkins
So Wilkins is now the focal point of our offense?
Running brick from Dorell. Offense is stagnant.
Jrue up against the clock baseline J.
Give and go Ivey to Jrue to Ivey.
0 FTA for the sixers that quarter i think
Rather blah quarter after the hot start. Rough way to close out the last quarter of the 1st quarter. Couldn't generate any buckets/looks.
Damien missed two freebies. After being fouled on a drive.
forgot thanks
Damn, what a terrible possession to open up the 2nd. Just terrible.
KG back in to open the 2nd. No Hawes thankfully, Lavoy on him.
Jrue turnover, stripped.
Geez Jrue, not in control there. Ended up off him out of bounds.
They've got Dorell initiating/transporting quite a bit here. Not sure why he doesn't want Jrue bringing it up.
sissy jumper
Ivey 3.
ivey to thad
2nd time they called the kg moving screen
Thought the first time he was just guilty of holding onto Ivey?
yea but ivey sold it well by trying to get over the screen instead of excepting it
Ha at Hawes, trying all those fakes just to get his shot off. Travels.
moultrie putback
moultrie putback!
turner from midrange
Jrue steal, ET flush!
Jrue steal again, ugh ET too heavy off the back-iron.
moultrie is good at getting post position but nobody passes to him
Well I'll be damn Hawes, off the top of the backboard when you were trying to bank it? Pitiful
Jrue airball. Ugh.
sissy jumper
jrue with his ninth first half assist. m prediction almost came true in two quarters!
man Thad is flying around up and and down and all over! seriously, he looks great.
Jrue stifled by Avery there. Good D by Bradley.
It's depressing to see Bradley own Holiday on both ends of the floor.
stat people:why does nba.com list different o/d ratings than basketballref?pace adjustments?
Bad shot, Thad.
Jrue throwing that one handed mess. Turnover. Get it back.
Spence dunk! heh
alley oop to hawes!
Thad left standing in concrete by Bass.
Man, Bradley is on fire. ugh
bad shot thad
Ivey steal and layup!
Ugh Jrue, turnover again after a good backdoor pass from Hawes.
thad putback
OK Doug, KG just went out. Get Hawes out of there please.
Jrue nice spin move and lefty finish.
Thad's just lost all his rhythm/stroke on free throws.
Jrue steal from Bradley, then he forces one up and gets swatted.
ET to the line.
moultrie putback
Dag, I didn't even realize Terrence Williams in still in the league with Boston. He fizzled out quick.
Jrue's struggling. Bradley draws the charge moving his feet.
Jrue with a nifty crossover and drive. Fouled to the stripe.
Jrue crossover again, fouled to the line again.
The closeout to this quarter I suppose is the beginning of the usual tease?
8-0 run to end it.
Stop bitching, ET.
Motherfucker, ET still kept bitching back at the ref after the play had crossed halfcourt and he loses Jordan Crawford for a triple. Selfish ass.
Annnndddd he follows that up with another "pause and look" at the ref after getting bumper on a jumper all while Jordan Crawford hustles and beats him down the floor for a layup. Tired of his mess. man
And Doug trots him back out there after that timeout and display. sheesh
Um, tease officially over.
Dorell shoots an airball on a wide open pullup.
Doug should have made a statement with ET and let him know that selfish mess will not be tolerated and sat him for the rest of the game. Inexcusable.
worst season ever! worst personnel, most boring games, no heart.
Another paper-bag-on-the-head season for my beloved 76ers.
"Dr. J and Moses Malone are not walking through that door." -- Coach Collins paraphrasing Pitino, referring to Turner and Bynum
tease?
nevermind
First game in some time I've subjected myself to, with attentiveness. Development-wise, little's changed that matters. Jrue's improved some, but his PG instincts are still ho-hum. Young still soft, terrified of contact. Turner is outclassed by most starters in this league. As I type, he's twice punked in seconds when trying with desperation to go to the rack.
Collins might want that stat trax huddle back from TNT - that didn't seem like a good huddle
why is turner running the point right now?
Arnett got most all of Lavoy's minutes tonight.
Hawes with the matador D.
I guess one positive is trotting Turner out there for 44 minutes a night will help our tanking chances.
jrue just disappeared in the second half. one assist after halftime, one of six from the floor
turner's boxscore line is deceptive-18, 9, 7-6/19 from the floor is more telling
nice to see turner and holiday get to the line eleven times combined and make em all
Grab his ass Evan. sheesh with all that swatting down
Pretty decent that they kept the score that close with such a huge three-point disparity. Another game where the effort was by and large there. That Orlando game was an outlier.
As much as Turner is guilty of ending up with the same points as shots, Jrue hasn't been efficient for about month either. And considering Jrue isn't a lost cause like Turner is, this is a pretty troubling development. Hopefully he can start getting to the line more like he did tonight. It salvaged a pretty poor shooting night otherwise.
Good to see Doug finally play Moultrie. It took him long enough. How far that kid goes will mostly depend on his defense, but he seems to care on that end.
Holy shit, they put up 100 shots? In a game against Boston? That's insane.
Thought the game plan was good. The energy was really good. Really just a bad luck loss. Boston was insanely hot from the outside. They forced Boston into 22 turnovers, outscored them 64-38 in the paint and went to the line more times than them. Eh, one step closer to a disappointing lottery pick, I guess.
tough call for POTG. I'll go with Moultrie. Thad, Turner and Jrue all had nice counting stat lines, but they also all shot the ball poorly and/or turned the ball over too much. Thought Moultrie was a breath of fresh air w/ his hustle. I'd give the kid a start if he keeps playing like this. Certainly couldn't hurt.
if this team really really really does want to tank, they should find a phantom injury flareup to sit Thad, damn would they be awful without that guy
IMO the key to effective tanking is running enough sets through Hawes and Wilkens. Maybe some Ivey iso.
Or just continue running the same sets where you set a phantom screen resulting in Jrue getting doubled. That seems effective.
I've never really been a "taking" type of fan- but they better not finish the year where they are right now in the standings. 11th, but only 2 wins ahead of 4th. That is a piss poor pain to reward ratio.
Sorry for the snarky post- just nothing really worth discussing at this point.
Sorry "taking" should read tanking. My posting execution is Sixer inspired- pride, passion and whatever.
if korver plays tonight dont let turner spend a second trying to guard him
Why, do you want us to get the 11th pick?
if they lose its gonna be cause they cant stop horford
They will pick higher then 11th. There are literally about 5 more wins on the schedule. 28 wins will not be picking 11th. Go look at the schedule remaining, and be honest with yourself, and tell me where there is more then about 5-7 wins. This team has like 2 wins over its last 15-20 goes or so. There is no reason it is going to get better the schedule is harder now.
I could see as many as 9 wins (note: I'm not predicting we'll win all of the following games - these are just winnable games). Backwards order: @DET, CLE, @CHA, CHA, @CLE, MIL, @SAC, POR, BKN.
It wouldn't shock me if they win something like 7/10 or 6/10 to finish the season.