Green and Evans lead Sixers over Toronto

Time to give them credit. And a rare chance to be on Sixers4guidos’ front page (LOL).

Reggie Evans (in the picture, looking actually a good offensive player…) and Willie Green were Sixers’ best players in a 99-95 win over Toronto, that marks the midseason term. Sixers are 16-25 (.390) and it looks that keeping this pace my 31 W prediction will be pretty correct.

The game wasn’t exactly memorable, both teams were in the second night of a back-to-back, Toronto was playing for the fourth time in five nights, Sixers for the fourth time in six.

Not suprisingly the start was slow, in the FIRST QUARTER Sixers shot 35% (6/17) with Andre Miller missing oll of his 5 attempts, and Toronto 35% (7/20). Our offense was just stagnant, we saw Dalembert shooting a three (!!), Lou Williams and Thaddeus Young launching two airballs. A wonderful baseline dunk by Jamario Moon was the best thing in those ugly 12 minutes (15-18).

A new star is born

I think this time the game is marginal. I enjoyed it like it was a win.

Yes, because the 103-105 home loss to the Toronto Raptors (record: 2-3, 40%) could be a POSITIVE turning point for the future of this storied franchise. It could mark the day of the birth of a future NBA star, Louis “at will” Williams (in the picture, listening to the best PG in Sixers history during last night’s game).

Stats tell us something but I am trying to go beyond the 21 points in 20 minutes (19 in the 4th quarter !!), the 3/3 from 3pt, the 4 points play in a close, tough game and a dramatic finish… what is important here is to realize we have a FANTASTIC, young player, athletic, with an unbelievable talent and some rare ability to keep his composure and make the right choice when it counts.

No, no selfishness, no 1-vs-5 when he was feeling hot, no forced shots, no willing to show he’s “the man”, no urgency to prove something: he scored all those 19 points always  taking the right shots, dishing the ball when it was the best option. Impressive for a 21 y/o guy in a League where the egoes usually dominate.

And this coming directly from the high school, where he was a sort of a God (I guess) and after riding the pine for three years, a very long period if you basically are a teenager, already making thousands dollars to play your favourite sport. Shows he learned to be patient (the most difficult thing at that age. with all the hype, the money etc) and kept the right mentality, without bitching or screaming.

He’s also clutch, which doesn’t hurt. It’s true that “two free throws by Bosh gave Toronto a 103-100 lead before Williams had the opportunity for a three-point play with 15.2 seconds left, but he missed the free throw” but what he had done before that was simply amazing.

Sixers lost the game, right. Why? Well, I won’t repeat how the (enjoyable) game ended - after all guys at NBA.com get paid to fill the “Full play-by-play” page - I think that the key factors were:

Italy loses game and 2008 Olympics

Maybe someone is waiting for my recap of today’s game.

Well, the truth is I didn’t watch it. The game started at 4.30 PM european time and I was out for a job meeting that ended at 8…

Seems the (devastating, by the way) meeting saved me nearly two hours of real pain: how could I have described a 58-67 loss vs an average opponent like Germany?

Dirk’s smile (!!) is perhaps the funniest thing in this sad afternoon for guidos hoops fans.

The boxscore is also clear enough: when you shoot 13/33 from 2 pt, 5/23 from 3 pt and the other team grabs 52 rebounds vs yours 31 (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) every further comment should be useless.

I made a little research and found also these info, just to make the picture complete:

If you don’t like Euro 2007…

…you don’t like basketball.

And I’m not talking about NBA basketball, but hoops in general.

The list of the amazing finishes increased last night, with Vassilis Spanoulis beating Croatia with a long (very long…) three before time expired. I’ll try to post the link later. So after Lakovic (Slovenia, vs Italy) and Gurovic (Serbia, vs Greece) we watched another exciting, tough basket at the buzzer.

But the excitiment continues, and this time Italy was a part of it. Yes, because here I am telling you the story of a nice, OT, comeback 84-75 win vs Turkey. Follow my recap, it’s fun.

1st quarter. It ended with Turkey up 14 (15-29), a score that actually was 10-25 (largest lead), with a 14-3 turkish edge under the boards !! Need more? Belinelli started with 0/3, Turkey scored twice just before the shot clock expired, once on a fallaway three, Italy shot 5/16, Turkey 9/14. Clear enough?

Ok, you got the picture. Mehmet Okur and mostly Hidayet Turkoglu started doing their job, scoring whenever they wanted, and Peker did the rest. Italy was… well, I don’t know. Zero ideas, no offensive game, ghosts walking under the boards. Terrific start.

Good, but not enough

Italy’s second round at the Eurobasketball 2007 in Spain started with another defeat (wow !).

Ok, a 74-79 loss vs Lithuania is somehow honourable, since everybody picked Lithuania at least as semifinal bound before the competition. I say: yes, it is, but we could have won this game.

While it’s not suprising that we were simply overwhelmed under the boards (44-29), with guard Siskauskas (6 rebounds), Nuggets forward Linas Kleiza (9) and Ksistof Lavrinovic (5) whipping our centers (?), it’s disappointing that we forgot to run plays for Belinelli and Bargnani down the stretch, when they were hot and could have given us a chance to win the game.

Golden State Warriors’ rookie scored 9 consecutive points in the fourth quarter only to be forgotten in the last minutes, while Bargnani had another solid game (15 + 7, leading us in both categories) but wasn’t feeded enough at the end, when Italy collected silly turnovers and missed shots. So we couldn’t cut the 74-77 deficit with 50” to go.

Italy goes to Madrid, Serbia home

Mixed feelings at the end of this final day of the first round.

As largely predicted, Italy beat Poland, even if our win (79-70) was tougher than excpected. Azzurri were in control basically for the whole game, with margins between 14 and 5 points. The key factors for this win were two: shooting percentages and controllling the boards.

I mean, it’s pretty difficult to lose when you 1) shoot 12/21 from three point land and 2) outrebound the other team 34-26.

My deep knowledge of the game is displayed by these smart comments:

Parker better than us down the stretch

Better game, bitter end. Same taste like last night.

Maybe I should just guve a cut to the “Mr. Longoria” jokes and simply say that Tony Parker is a fantastic basketball player.

He almost singlehandedly beat us in the second game of the Eurobasktball 2007 played in Alicante, a 62-69 loss to France. 

What can you say when a player ends with 36 points, more than 50% of his whole team? He started scoring France’s first 9 points and 13 of the first 17, answering Andrea Bargnani’s excellent start. 

Parker reached 27 after three quarters, when France’s total was 51, and carried the Blues in the last minutes.

After Bargnani’s three pointer put Italy ahead at 60-57 with 4 minutes to go, the Spurs PG ignited a 10-0 break that basically closed the game, nailing a tough trey just before the shot clock expired to tie Andrea’s shot and scoring on another two drives to make it 60-67. Boris Diaw then sealed the game blocking Belinelli’s (soft) layup attempt.

The game was pretty enjoyable, if you love close, hard fought, tactical battles. Your typical FIBA basketball, to sum it up.

Hurting defeat to start Euro 2007

Bad overall game, wonderful and exciting 4th quarter, terrible end.

This in a nutshell is the story of Italy’s start at the Eurobasket 2007 in Spain, a 68-69 loss vs Slovenia.

It hurts when you lose with a three pointer at the buzzer, and it hurts even more when you basically trailed 39.30 minutes, went up (for the first time !) by 1 point only then, and, after your opponent regained the lead, you scored a three pointer to apparently win it with less then 5 seconds to go.  

This is the story of the crazy finish, with Matteo Soragna’s corner trey frustrated by Jaka Lakovic heroics from downtown just before the horn sounded. It was a heck of a shot, so more power to FC Barcelona’s lefthanded guard.

I suggest you to log on to You Tube and find a video about this tomorrow, very fun to watch (unless you are a guido of course).

The rest of the game was something between boring and embarassing for Italy, with the first half ending at 25-38 (!!), that became a 45-56 slovenian lead after three quarters.

No news = good news?

Not necessarily.

First of all let me welcome some new readers that came across the first italian Sixers blog while I was out and commented my posts: I wish they will come back here often.

So yes, during my three weeks off nothing really important happened, synthetically here are the main facts:

1) Stephen A. Smith will no longer write his column for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Smith, in case you don’t know, is (was ?) one of most controversial sports writers in the City of brotherly love, and a popular tv commentator, covering basketball also for ESPN. I guess this is more news for bloggers and Philly guys than for the average NBA fan.

I never really liked SAS, but I was not such a big critic of him either, he is a talented writer that simply got too arrogant with fame and success. By the way, before starting Sixers4guidos I wrote him a couple of emails to ask for his opinion on Sixers topics but never got a reply. Other Philly based journalists were polite enough to write me back few lines.

So we won’t read his articles anymore, while for sure will continue seeing him face and hearing his - pretty annoying -voice on ESPN (sorry Brian…).

At the end of the day this is really no news, I don’t care that much, honestly.

2) Celtics signed James Posey. Uhm…. I explained why I was not impressed by Ainge’s trades for Allen and Garnett and even exchange jokes with posters and fans that were praising him, but I must admit this is a very good addition.

Sixers already under .500, panic time

…aaaahhhh, where is dear old John Salmons when you need him?

I took a look at Sixers roster on NBA.com and he’s nowhere to be found. Then I realized he is no more a Sixers and I immediately got relaxed. Whew !! We managed to ship that bum, finally. What is more surprising, this or the fact the somebody else signed him?

This smart thought allowed me to go to a further step: remembering that Salmons “plays” for the Sacramento Kings now. So I checked the Kings roster but among the Cezary Trybanskis, the Christian Marakers and the Nik Caner-Medleys of this world he’s nowhere to be found again. 

At the end of the day the main question then is: how can a Summer League start without John “Summer League” Salmons ????? The king of the useless career high, the sultan of garbage games, the MVP of the off season(s), the star of the “When it doesn’t count” selections. If the NBA was played from July to August, John Salmons would be a HOF, mark my words. 

Still, I read a lot of comments about the Sixers Summer League in Vegas