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.

Mo and Thad getting love in the Blogger rankings

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The final edition of the MVP/ROY Blogger rankings is up at We Rite Goode.

After hosting Round 4, your favorite guido blogger took part to the final voting and contributed spreading the love for Thaddeus Young and Mo Cheeks so make sure to check it out.

Nice way to celebrate Sixers successes and this wonderful season, while we wait for game 2.

Well done guys !!!

UPDATE: in the second part of these last rankings, that includes the race for assigning the MVP award, you’ll find also Lou Williams, selected in a special category that We Rite Goode created for the occasion…. the page is wonderful, with graphics, sheets, smart ass comments etc, make sure not to miss it, really !! Thanks to We Rite Goode’s crew for the fantastic job.

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.

Bitter end for a fantastic Sixers season

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REGULAR season, I mean.

It ended with the 115-109 loss in Charlotte, the fourth straight, that kept us under .500 (40-42, .488).

Big deal? No, it was a fantastic run, and this young, exciting, athletic Sixers team probably overachieved, thanks mainly to the wonderful job done by Maurice Cheeks, a guy I bashed on these pages many times. Time to apologize again.

Some of you would perhaps remember I predicted 31 wins, but hundreds of ”colleagues” (in the category I put journalists, experts, bloggers, fans) were more around the 24-28 W range, with Sixers finishing from last to second last in the Eastern Conference.

So I won’t complain about these final four games, even if I would have preferred to take at least this last one, in order to avoid finishing with a losing record and to build some momentum before the playoffs (starting on Sunday at Detroit).

Cheeks rested most of his starters last night, with only Iguodala logging his usual minutes. Sixers were down 23 in the third (76-53, after a three pointer by Jason Richardson) but rallied back and closed the quarter 87-80 thanks to a 12-2 run with five consecutive points by an active Thaddeus Young and an alley oop dunk by Willie Green (season high 27 - in the picture, getting a rare S4G front page honour ) right at the buzzer.

Last second loss heads us to Detroit

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I’m finally back after a 11 day absence due to a business trip. And I finally managed to see a whole Sixers game again: the last one before I left, was the win vs Nets.

Right now you’d already wacthed and read everything about the 90-91 home loss to the Cavs (40-41, .494) and the way it come.

In case you didn’t, David Aldridge has the best recap, as usual. Point is, we lost the game, will finish at the seventh place and meet Detroit in the first round.

I’ll just add my two cents. Unlike many Sixers fans, I think the call on Dalembert was correct. He fouled Devin Brown - in the pic, sealing the victory - and before the buzzer. So no “robbery”, no “steal”, no “scandal”, in my opinion. It was a foul, coming after a great play, the block on LeBron James. (EDIT: after reviewing it for the 157th time I finally realized Ilgauskas pushed Sam towards Brown… that foul should have been called as well).

No big deal though. Sixers played a heck of a game, a playoffs game and I really enjoyed it. If it could end 0.2 seconds before, it would have been nicer. Whatever.

I’ll try to remind the good things:

Sixers to playoffs, S4G temporarely off

Guys, I’m out on a business trip

I have troubles finding an Internet connection, let alone wacthing the games.

I’ll be back on Monday 15th, in the meantime I saw Sixers reached playoffs thanks to the win over the Hawks.

This is great, I admit I thought that was impossible this year and I also admit I was for tanking the season after the Korver trade.

Neither of that happened, and I am happy I missed all the predictions because this Sixers run was stunning, I fully enjoyed it.

Back in few days with full coverage !!

Sixers drop second straight in Cleveland

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“Technical” problems prevented me to watch the 91-88 loss in Cleveland.

Unfortunately I couldn’t find a way to catch the game, at least not yet.

Like always in these cases, I’ll strictly stick to FACTS (boxscore, reports, highlights - that I saw - and mostly the play-by-play page) to come to some undisputable conclusions.

I will wait to eventually add more points after having watched the game.

Sixers at 37-37 (.500) are currently 7th and still in a good position in the playoffs race. Toronto and Washington lost, Hawks won.

I wouldn’t make a big deal of this loss, it seems that the team played pretty well for the whole game and simply came up short in the last possessions, failing to score in the last 2 minutes, when they went 0/5.

Suns school of basketball

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Lesson #1: how to close a game in the first quarter.

Teachers: Steve Nash, Amare Stoudamire, Raja Bell & the rest of the Phoenix Suns. 

Students: all Sixers.

Development: jump off to a quick start using a combination of drives, layups, threes, three point plays.

Let the students crash the rim with their first 13 shots, turn the ball over, get blocked by your big men. Conclude with a basket at the quarter buzzer.

Outcome: 19-38 Suns lead.

After that, extend the lead and/or control the game at will. As soon as the students come closer (-10, say), make sure to get a couple of plays to push them away again: three pointers or ”and one” plays will be preferable.

Final outcome: 93-107 Suns win.

Let the students (37-36, .507) think about the lesson and do their homework.