Sixer-by-Sixer 07/08 breakdown: Andre Miller

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Sixers4guidos starts its player-by-player analysis of the season with the guy who in my humble opinion should receive the ‘Sixers MVP award’, point guard Andre Miller.

OVERALL EFFICIENCY AND RATE

Miller had arguably the best season of his career.

If you have been reading this blog for a while, you should know I am not a stat maniac, but his 17 PPG and .492 % FG (both career highs) are pretty impressive, especially coming at 32 y/o. 

Seven assists for 2.5 turnovers is a nice ratio as well, considering he plays 36 minutes in an up tempo team.

He’s always been known more as a playmaker than a scorer, but this year we saw that in the right system he can be also a reliable #2 option for his team, carrying the load offensively in many nights. He often knocked down clutch shots down the stretch, which never hurts….

My rate for Andre Miller is 9 (scale is from 1 to 10, being 10 the top).

Detroit has a new/old fan (Pistons 4, Sixers 2)

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I am back home after a 4 days romantic trip to Verona (the city of Romeo and Juliet !) with my wife, finally back blogging also.

I am changing job & town in the next weeks, so it’s possible that new posts and updates will have some pauses.

Anyway I’ll have BIG NEWS SOON, so give me a free pass and stay tuned on Sixers4guidos.

So the Sixers season is over after the 77-100 loss to the Pistons in game 6 of the first round: 4-2, end. While I’m typing this post, Detroit has a 2-1 lead over Orlando in the second round.

Of course no need to recap the game one week after it was played, and also because it was another blowout (2-15 Detroit to start it, 12-30 after the first quarter, 33-51 at the half…).

I’ll just point out some things, the feelings I had after the end of the series.

1) Detroit deserved to advance, of course. Can’t argue with three consecutive wins after trailing 1-2, also because the wins came in a pretty impressive way. The best team won, simple as that.

2) I am VERY HAPPY with what Sixers did in the season and in the series. Idiots complaining about the 2-1 lead we had, about the collapses in the last two games, about Iguodala’s (actual) shortcomings, perhaps forget where did we come from.

Sixers blow a unique chance (Pistons 2, Sixers 2)

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Yeah, the series is still open, yeah before it started everybody would have thought that being 2-2 after four games would have been damn good, but still I have the feeling that we missed a great chance.

1) First off, give Pistons their props for the deserved 84-93 win of last night, they proved why they have been to the Conference finals five years in a row.

2) we better try to analyze how we let a 14 point lead (43-29, 4.30 left in the second) turn into a 15 point deficit (65-80, 8.30 to play in the fourth. That means a 22-51 break in 20 minutes of action !

3) we should think about possible solutions to avoid that happening again.

Pistons played like a veteran team, never losing composure also when everything looked going in the wrong sense for them.

Sixers’ FIRST QUARTER was great: Sammy knocked down a couple of free throws and had a huge block on Billups (0/3 + 3 turnovers to start the game…), igniting the crowd and setting the tone for his team mates. Iguodala hit his first two shots, one being a step back jumper (the same shot that NEVER went in before) and the other a thunderous dunk over Rasheed Wallace. We all thought it could be the right night for him and for the Sixers.

By the half of the period all Sixers starters had already scored, while Detroit (with Maxiell in at PF) struggled: it was 17-10 and it ended at 25-19, with Green and Dalembert scoring six points, Iguodala five and Young four. Mo didn’t make any substitution.

Sixers wind blowing (Pistons 1, Sixers 2)

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I don’t know if there are Reggie Evans groupies yet. If not, time to create a group of them.

Evans, a reborn Dalembert and Andre Miller were - in this order, to me - our key players in the 95-75 unexpected thrashing of the Pistons in game 3.

This means few things:

1) my 4-1 Pistons prediction is already off the mark (and I love it, of course…)

2) young Sixers are psychologically more solid and mature than we all thought, bouncing back from the blow out of game 2 and answering it with another blow out. This against a veteran team that was supposed to regain the lead of the series, also mentally I mean, after the “distraction” of game 1. It didn’t happen, I see.

3) Pistons might still win the series, of course, but after these three games they are actually closer to a memorable collapse than to a “routine” advancement to the second round. Some signs (looks, faces, body language etc) should worry a lil bit their hot fans.

Your normal Game 2 (Pistons 1, Sixers 1)

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The 105-88 loss of last night is exactly the game that we were expecting. Even in Game 1, I mean.

Pistons absolutely destroyed the Sixers, outplaying us in every possible way and the final score doesn’t even give the idea of how hard we got beat.

I don’t think it’s necessary to recap the game, let’s say we could stay with Detroit only in the FIRST QUARTER and only because it lasted 12 minutes (LOL).

Andre Miller’s (lucky) bank shot at the buzzer made it 25-18, putting an end to a lesson of playoffs basketball. I would say ‘Detroit playoffs basketball’ if the expression wouldn’t remind me of that annoying chorus that you hear there….

To sum it up, Pistons played a damn stifling defense, pushing us to shoot FOUR AIRBALLS in the period, that Iguodala ended with 0/6, while Sixers as a team were 3/14 initially.

On the other side, Rasheed Wallace did his job, exactly like in game 1, scoring 11 points with a conbination of low post moves over Dalembert (embarassed in every one-on-one situation) and a long three. Thaddeus Young was the only effective Sixers, with 6 points off some nice offensive rebounds.

Looks like we’ll have a series… (Pistons 0, Sixers 1)

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I honestly didn’t think that was possible (who did it?), but still it happened.

(Check what I said before the game in this Q & A session with Jesse from Pistons Nation, that was so kind to contact me for exchanging thoughts about the series. You’ll find also some nice pics and more funny stuff…)

Sixers stole a 86-90 win in Detroit, lead the series 1-0 and gained home court advantage, all in a fantastic night. That came in one of the weirdest, craziest, most exciting of the possible ways it could.

Sixers trailed by thirteen at halftime (51-38 ) and fifteen midway through the third (62-57). Here they went on a 10-0 run that avoided a collapse (especially a mental one) and totally changed momentum. The quarter ended 70-63, and was followed by another 4-0 run at the beginning of the fourth (70-67) that set the stage for the final 10 minutes, in which Sixers came close (72-71), tied it (76-76) and finally took the lead when Miller made it 77-78.

Here came a pretty unbelievable sequence, a sign that things were turning in our favor: Evans made 2/2 from the line (!!), Billups went 0/2 (!!!!) and Evans scored again on the next possession (!!!!!!!!), this time on a fall away jumper (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!): 79-82 Sixers with 4.26 to go. Of course the game was still open then, but our confidence had a huge boost.