Welcome Back, Korver

Let's open with a musical tribute to Kyle Korver's return:



The Sixers put together their best game of the year tonight in Milwaukee, bringing the Bucks' improbable undefeated home winning streak (6 in a row) to a screeching halt with a 114-99 pounding.

Kyle Korver returned from his strained groin to drop 20 off the bench, including hitting 4 of 5 three-pointers. Iguodala played his best game of the year. Dalembert played his best game of the year. Andre Miller played his best game of the year.

There are plenty of great stats we can point to when assigning credit for the win:

• 52.3% from the floor (45/86)
• 38.1% from three (8/21)
• 76.2% from the line (16/21)
  
• 31 assists on 45 field goals
• Only 9 turnovers

But we really only need to highlight one thing from the box score:

• Rodney Carney - 2 minutes played, 0's across the board.

Actually, it was better than that. Carney only touched the ball twice, and never in a position where he could jack up a pointless shot or dribble the ball off his foot. That's what I call quality coaching.

The Sixers' rotation was only 8 deep, with Korver, Jason Smith and Lou Williams providing all the bench relief the team would need. I'd like to see Mo Cheeks go 9 deep and take about 12 minutes of time away from Willie Green and give them to Thad Young. Green turned in a solid offensive performance tonight (15 points, 0 turnovers), but Michael Redd abused him on the other end of the floor whenever the two were matched up.

This was a game I had marked down as a win for the Sixers before the season started. Tomorrow night, was not. Utah will come into Philly for a back-to-back (the Sixers third back-to-back where they traveled home for the back end, kind of an unfriendly schedule, if you ask me). If the Sixers keep playing like this, they have a shot at winning 3 of their next 4, a run like that sure would be nice at this point of the season.

One more photo to welcome Kyle Korver back, because love him or hate him, Korver makes this offense 10x more dynamic. Without him out there to spread the floor everything the Sixers try to do on offense is exponentially harder.

Player of The Game: Andre Miller, 18 points, 8 boards, 9 assists and only 1 turnover. Funny how the assist numbers go through the roof when Korver is out there hitting jumpers.

Team Record: 4-9