“Mo has me in a fog of confusion. Is he really that lost as a coach? 1. Thad gets two easy post baskets being guarded by Mike Miller in the first quarter. Like taking candy from the baby. And then they never go back to the match-up- never as in not once. In fact they let Mike Miller guard a guy standing in the weak side corner all game (Thad’s “role” in this offense), effectively letting the Wolves hide their weakest defender- while wasting the Sixer’s most naturally gifted scorer at the same time! That’s like the trifecta of poor coaching right there. [...] 3. You let the Wolves kill you all day in the post, and then when you finally decide to send a double team you send the strong side defender to leave Mike Miller? Has Mo never heard of the concept of sending a double from the weak side? 4. I’m not convinced this team has been taught any strategy against the pic and roll. I realize that some of the players lack BB IQ, but seriously, this has been a problem for Mo’s entire tenure. I will leave it at 4, I’m sure you can probably bring up a few more issues.”

Answer to 1) is: all the factors you mentioned, and in that order. Coaching staff should get the biggest part of the blame, then come the players, then the playmaker. I hope/think it will be better after another couple of weeks, also because it’s honestly difficult to do worse, LOL.

Answer to 2) is: Sixers played good defenses only in stretches. But overall, the most evident thing is that T’WOLVES HAD THEIR GO-TO-GUY(S) when they needed the most. They knew what do to: give the ball to Jefferson in the low post. Then it was either a basket after a 1-vs-1, or a dish out for an open jumper. We are not at that stage (yet).

As for Sixers’ offense, we are clearly at our best when we DO NOT execute: when we can get easy baskets in transition, I mean. That (current) lack of organization is mainly a matter of time, hopefully. This team still needs to gel.

We need to give more playing time to our shooters (=Rush), though.

didn’t see the game so the following questions come only from reading your recap and looking at the boxscore.

1) You say: “Plus we often take HORRIBLE decisions down the stretch, resulting in forced shots, turnovers, bricks: static offense, no circulation, I said it many times before. We almost never run plays”.

My questions is: who is to blame for this? Coaching staff, the players, our playmaker or simply lack of time to develp good chemistry?

2) Looking at the stats sheet I had the impression we played a good offensive game: decent shhoting percentage (47 %), balanced shot distribution (21 Brand, 11 Young, 15 iguodala, 13 miller) and 11 offensive rebounds. Then I looked at Minnesota’s stats and saw they shot 51.4%, went to the foul line 30 times (vs Sixers’ 23), had 29 assists (vs Sixers’ 19). I then started thinking we might have defended somewhat poorly. Is it so?

I watched the Pacers’s game with that huge comeback and what got us back in the game was when we picked up our effort on the defensive side: even in the middle of that exraodinary effort our offense was from an execution point of view average. What do you think?

Ciao, raffaele