No Andre Iguodala. That pretty much told the story tonight. The depleted
Sixers showed a lot of heart in coming back multiple times, but
Portland was just too much for Philly on the last night of their 5-game
road trip and the second night of a back-to-back.
Charts (rotations later)
Thoughts
- Well Turner, this was your big chance and you came up small. Foul trouble put a kink in a decent start and Turner wasn't a factor at all the rest of the way. Disappointing, to say the least.
- I thought Jrue and Brand would have to carry the load if the Sixers had a chance. They had a chance, but those guys both had off games on the offensive end. I thought Jrue dealt with Batum's length well in that he was still distributing and he wasn't turning the ball over, but he only shot 3/11 from the floor. The 10 assists to only 1 turnover is a positive, though.
- Lou is your player of the game. His scoring brought the team back multiple times, and it's enough for me to overlook the dumb mistakes on his part.
- I can't tell you how old it's gotten to look at the schedule and see the Sixers starting a game with a distinct disadvantage before you even look at who's playing for the other team. I hope Thorn and Collins can make enough noise to get a more favorable schedule next season.
- I hate to play the what if game, but I think it's a certainty that Wes Matthews doesn't score 28 on 15 shots with Iguodala covering him all night. I'd also venture a guess that Wallace wouldn't have been such a difference maker with Iguodala's size and athleticism out there. I don't know how serious Iguodala's injury is, and I'm sure sitting him was the prudent thing to do, but I really wanted him on the floor. I think this game goes down differently with him on the floor.
- 2-3 on the road trip. Tied for 6th. Time to lick your wounds and head home for a very important game with the Hawks.
- The Sixers who played tonight don't have any reason to hang their heads. Tough circumstances against a good team. They got down big early and they never gave up. It would've been easy to have one foot on the flight home at the half, but they didn't.
Player of The Game: Lou Williams
Team Record: 36-34
Up Next: vs. ATL, Wednesday
Was not as disappointed by the score as the fact that no one really distinguished themselves.
Kapono was a +2, doesn't that count for anything these days?
Sixers fall to Blazers:
http://ow.ly/4i2QO
C'mon Tom. I expect witty titles from you...
How about "Sixers trail Blazers all game in a losing effort."
Iguodala probably wouldn't have been covering Matthews, but he most likely would have defended Wallace without help and shut him down (and then the Sixers might have done a better job staying at home on the 3's). In three games vs. Iguodala this year, Wallace scored 8, 11, and 6 points on 9-24 shooting. In one game vs. the Sixers without Iguodala, Wallace scored the same 25 points on 12 shots.
The Sixers stayed in this game because of unusually hot shooting from Meeks and Thad and decent scoring from Lou. But the defensive rating was just atrocious, reminiscent of the Iguodala-less Warriors loss in Oakland or the Cavs loss at home where they gave up points on 20+ consecutive possessions down the stretch.
Hopefully Iguodala is back and healthy for the Hawks game ...
Eh, I'm pretty sure Iguodala would've been on Matthews from the start, with their small lineup vs. our small lineup. He scored 17 in the first quarter, I think. That's mainly what I was talking about. Agree he would've switched onto Wallace late, especially if he got on that kind of roll, but no way he would've started on Wallace. Who would Brand have guarded?
Meant their small lineup vs. our big lineup:
Hawes vs. Aldridge
Brand vs. Wallace
Iguodala vs. Matthews
Meeks vs. Batum
Jrue vs. Miller
I suppose you could make the case that Iguodala would've started on Batum, but after the second three, you know Collins would've made that switch.
so what will it take to get a less painful schedule and some slight amount of respect from the referees for this team next season?
I'm wondering if being essentially absent from Thursday night games on TNT makes back-to-backs more likely.
Sixers lost because of the absence of ai. Brian sounds like your down on turner as a whole. You really don't talk about him much in your post, even when he does well. You obviously favor jrue even though he didn't step up his game either when we needed him and this isn't the first time. Regardless the Positive of this game for me is Even though we lost we Hung in there without our best player. Turner is a rookie let's act like he is.
Of course Turner has been disappointing so far because we were told before the season that he was ready to make an impact right away, and also because the Sixers spent a very valuable draft selection on him. If he was picked like seventh or something there wouldn't be nearly as much annoyance right now. He hasn't been terrible but he also hasn't stepped up and contributed that much, so fans need to see that at some point to feel good about a second overall pick.
Turner was out of sorts with the early fouls and couldn't find a groove. He didn't even get 18 minutes in this one. Officiating really hurt him.
Little harsh on Turner here Brian. He started 2 for 2, then got 2 terrible foul calls and was sent to the bench.
He eventually game back, made 1 of 2, then got 2 terrible foul calls and was sent to the bench.
He barely played after that, couple bad shots when the game was basically out of reach. What were you expecting him to do in 17 minutes?
I was expecting him to stay on the floor. That's part of contributing. I haven't really given Turner much grief this season, check the archives. They needed him last night and he didn't show. Not sure why I should ignore or sugarcoat that.
I think Brian has been fair to Turner all year, and I say this as a person who only follows the Sixers because they drafted Turner.
There have been situations like last night when the team has needed more from Evan and for the most part he hasn't come through.
But I'm still bullish on Turner's future. He works hard and will get better and smarter in the future.
Agree entirely. Not sure why my comment was taken to the point where Brian has been unfair on Turner this year. I didn't intend that at all.
I never said you've given much grief to Turner this season. I said that you gave him grief for this game. I wasn't implying it's been a season-long thing, in fact I think your comments on Turner have pretty much been fair otherwise. Just pointing out that I didn't think it was fair this time.
I didn't think any of the fouls were his fault. They were terrible off-the-ball calls by a ref who had it out for a rookie for whatever reason. He can't stay on the floor if he's automatically getting called for a foul just for trying to play defense. If he made no effort on D to avoid such ridiculous calls, Collins would pull him for bad D.
Is Turner now in the same boat as Cousins where it's always someone else's fault but never his own? It used to be Meeks, then Lou, then Doug was blamed for his shortcomings, now it's the refs?
You're focusing solely on his not-at-fault foul calls, what about the extremely careless turnovers and being generally lost on defense as a whole. There was a reason that Doug had Nocioni in the game for much of the second half, Turner didn't give him a reason to put him back in, he wasn't in foul trouble after halftime at all.
You seriously think the forearm shove Turner gave to fight through a screen when he knocked the guy down and a 3 pointer was made wasn't an actual foul? The refs 'have it out for him cause he's a rook' and 'automatically' whistled him up?