Magically ripped

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Sixers played ten minutes of embarassing basketball, had a nice reaction that lasted around four minutes, which was followed by thirtyfour, painful minutes of garbage time.

That’s the short story of the 113-95 loss at Orlando, that put us at 34-35 (.493). Call it “reality check”, “awakening”, “step back” etc etc, that’s it.

And don’t get fooled by the boxscore, the game was NOT that ‘close’ (LOL).

Sixers were completely outplayed basically from start to finish and in every possible way.

It started 4-0 with two dunks by Dwight Howard, both off Nelson’s assists, then 12-4 with Magic hitting all of their first five shots, then 20-6, then 25-8 when Evans (it was Maurice, don’t worry…) knocked down the fifth three pointer out of five attempts for the Magic, in your typical “pick your poison” situation.

Either Howard was getting a dunk or an easy basket (see the picture) or one of Orlando perimeter players was draining an open jumper.

When Sixers can run, they are magic

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(UNIFORMS UPDATE: guys, I’ve been in contact with the Sixers organization about this topic over the last days. I received a first, encouraging feedback and I’m waiting for a further follow up. Stay tuned on the first italian Sixers blog, as I could have interesting news soon. In the meantime, sign on the link above !!)

I’ll keep the recap of the 101-89 win vs Orlando (26-32, .448) very short, as it comes late due to “technical” reasons.

Sixers played one of the best halves of the season, the first one, to build a 19 point lead (61-42) that Magic could never overcome.

Andre Miller had a terrific 22 points (on 9/10 from the field !!), 6 assists and 3 rebounds stat line at the break, and abused Jameer Nelson and Carlos Arroyo all night with a complete set of low post moves, mid range jumpers, drives (like in the picture).

Willie Green, a player I really love(d) to bash, had a fantastic all around performance: not only his 26 points are a season high, but he also dished assists (5), played defense and even had two blocks, one on JJ Redick, one on Jameer Nelson, that sparked nice fastbreaks on both occasions. 

Sixers got shot in Orlando

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I wrote many times and in many places that Sixers are perhaps the only team in the NBA that lacks BOTH low post scoring AND outside shooting: basically, we can score easily only on fastbreaks and in transition, which we do very well.

Well, how about meeting a team that has BOTH (great) low post scoring AND (terrific) outside shooting? The outcome is often close to the 115-99 loss in Orlando (24-32, .428), a game that saw Sixers trailing wire-to-wire.

It started with an alley oop for Howard on the first play (an emphatic dunk for the 2-0 Orlando initial lead) and it ended with Jameer Nelson’s three that marked the last points for the home team (115-96) and Magic fifteenth triple (!!).

I think it wasn’t just a coincidence, because between these two field goals, Ron Jeremy’s Stan Van Gundy’s team used a balanced mix of inside and outside offense that was too much to handle for the Sixers.

Howard simply dominated Dalembert, the comparison between the two stat lines is merciless but it also tells exactly the truth of how the matchup went. There was a play in the first quarter when Howard, guarded by Sam in the low post, took a couple of dribbles to get into the paint and shoot a little lefthanded hook: he missed it but pushed Sam aside so strong that he could go up again easily and slam home his own miss.

More Mo ball

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If Sixers players wanted to show they were happy that Mo Cheeks got a one year extention, they did it pretty well. And if this is how they will play until the end of this season and for the whole next one, Stefanski’s move was good.

Ok, we all know it’s not gonna be always like yesterday, but still the 124-84 thrashing of the Knicks (24-31, .436) was nice to watch for many reasons.

The NBA is fun, and its schedule puts teams in weird situations. This game was the second of the back-to-back for both Philadelphia and New York: Sixers were coming from the AWFUL loss vs the Timberwolves, one of the worst teams in the League, Knicks from an amazing win at Washington, where they set a franchise record for points scored in overtime (23).

Guess what, Sixers TOYED (I’m stealing this from Walt Frazier) with the Knicks for 48 minutes and the game was over after one quarter (37-17). I have really troubles trying to describe what happened last night. Basically Sixers outplayed the Knicks in every possible way, scoring a ton of points in transition and even knocking down threes. On the other side New York was throwing a sort of “turnover party”, getting killed under the glasses and on every hustle play.

Smart loss at MSG

Well done guys (in the pic, Lou Williams and Andre Iguodala congratulating each other*).

Play hard, fight until the end and then lose the game. Whether it’s for missed free throws, lack of outside shooting (like it was last night) or whatever else, I don’t care. We need more of those ping pong balls in the lottery.

Let the Knicks and other franchises rise to useless 33-35 wins, we need to stay below that number and get a top pick. In the meantime, it’s ok if you play like this, and with Mo at the helm, there is still more hope. He didn’t make any particular mistake last night, to be honest, but he can always f’k a game up with his decisions.

Some fellow tanker on the Sixers board of Philly.com described the matchup vs New York as a “must lose game”. Another poster followed him saying this is a “must lose weekend” (tonight we play the Bobcats). I second that. And that’s why the 81-89 loss (16-28, .364) has a sweet taste. Three losses in a row, 2-11 in 2008? Fine with me. Just let the young plays play, develop them, make them improve.

Versus the emerging (?) Knicks we saw one more time what is good and what is bad with this team. Among the good things:

When Calvin Booth outplays Shaq…

…and we are talking basketball, not ugliness, it means it’s a good sign for the Sixers.

Philadelphia whipped Miami basically for two quarters, saw an early 21 point lead (47-26, 3.57 left in the second) reduced to 3 in the fourth (84-81, 5.10 to go) and finished on a strong 12-4 run to win 96-85 (12-16, .429) in front of the second largest crowd of the year at the Wachovia Center, 18.430 fans (was it the Shaq effect or the “New Sixers” effect? We’ll see…).

One thing to be clear: I didn’t watch the game. At least not yet. It was broadcasted on NBA TV and I have League Pass, that didn’t include it: the game was nowhere to be found on the net. But I followed it live on Yahoo.com (by the way, they refresh the boxscore quicker than on Nba.com and the play-by-play update is very precise), that at least gives you an idea of how it went.

So I’m writing this recap basing on that + having seen the highlights: that’s why I will stick only to undisputed facts right now, waiting for an eventual update of the post with comments later. I really hope I will not break my streak of 25 consecutive Sixers games watched.

Facts are: Iguodala and Miller dominated the first quarter (25-17) in which Sixers shot 12/19, Heat 8/26. Iguodala scored 10 on 5/7 from the field, Miller 12 on 6/8: our point guard wouldn’t score anymore, choosing to set up his team mates for the rest of the game. He finished two rebounds short of a triple double in another excellent performance.