Sixers blow another one in Charlotte

Forget the ‘furious comeback’ (from -20 in the second to +4 in the fourth), forget the BS about the “pride”, the “reaction” etc etc, the game in Charlotte will go down as a 101-98 LOSS, while it should have been a WIN. 

And forget the 4th seed also, with a 40-37 (.519) record, that spot is definitely out of reach, we’d rather think aboout making it to the 5th, because Miami is there with a 1/2 game advantage, and our schedule looks extremely tough: three of the five games left on the road, and the two at home versus Boston and Cleveland, that both have important goals to reach.

And then again, when you get blown out by the Nets and you lose to the Bobcats immediately after, you can’t expect nothing good vs stronger opponents.

How about this: Sixers’ record against New Jersey and Charlotte is 1-7 (!!). So there you already have the answer to the question “Why didn’t we get home court advantage in the playoffs ?” that you’ll ask yourself at the end of the regular season. 

As you might guess, I am SLIGHTLY disapponted after losing for the third time this season to Larry Brown’s team. But after all, there is a reason why Sixers are floating around .500 all year: they could never find any consistency.

So there you have the exciting Ws at LA Lakers, vs Spurs (in a blow out), at Portland, the sweep against the Rockets (yes, we did that. And they had Yao and TMG in both games), and then the Calvin Booth-ugly losses at Minnesota, at Golden State, at O-K-L-A-H-O-M-A f’n C-I-T-Y (+ the 1-7 aforementioned record) that leave you speechless… That’s immaturity in the best case, mediocrity in a more realistic analysis.

After watching the Charlotte game, I remembered what George Karl said after we let another W slip away, in Denver: “The thought that comes to my mind is, bad teams lose games they’re supposed to win, and good teams win games they’re supposed to lose” . Remember that game?

I mean, how can you possibly allow Charlotte, the third worst offense in the NBA (less than 94 PPG) to score 63 points in the first half ??? On 57% shooting (22/38)? And 5/11 from behind the arc ??

Or allow Raymond Felton (good player, nothing more) to score 21 at the break, 32 at the end, setting a new career high ???

Yes, Lou Williams played very well again, the third quarter comeback was nice, we saw a possessed Willie Green almost singlehandedly carrying the offense (13 pts in the quarter on 4/5, including three treys), but we couldn’t finish the job. One more time. Another wasted effort.

Significantly, the game winner came off an airball by the MVP of the game: Gerald Wallace, completely lost by Iguodala on that play, grabbed the ugly, short floater by Felton and put it back with a layup (…), giving Charlotte a 99-98 lead with 30 seconds to go.

Then Iguodala missed a (makeable) step back jumper, Wallace was fouled and made his free throws (101-98), and the final three pointers by Iguodala and Green (at the horn) were off the mark. Another loss.

But several, bad mistake were committed before these plays:

1) Sixers missed three wide open threes in the fourth quarter (Green, Iguodala, Ivey), and I mean w-i-d-e effin’ open. When it’s just you and the basket, you have to knock them down, period. Miller, who had a good game, also misfired on an uncontested corner jumper with 1 minute to play that could have got us a three point lead.

2) Sixers allowed two, very costly, three point plays to Diaw & Okafor in the final minutes. It means we weren’t even good at fouling them.

3) Sixers allowed FOUR OFFENSIVE REBOUNDS in the last 3 minutes of the game, one leading to the decisive field goal, as we saw.

4) Sixers allowed Bobcats a lot of open shots on the perimeter down the stretch: it doesn’t appear on the boxscore, because Augustin and Felton missed them, but you can’t give shooters such a big room.

I have few more things to add before we start thinking about tonight’s game vs the Bulls. I’ll leave those in…

SIXERS4GUIDOS’ BONUS STATS AND RANDOM THOUGHTS – Iguodala is 4/11 on free throws in the last two games, Reggie Evans, after an impressive season from the line (for his standards, I mean), is 0/8. Make it a combined 4/19, circa 18 % – I love the blue collar guys, but Ratliff, Evans and Ivey combined for 4 points in 57 minutes of action last night. You detect something wrong there? LOL – Sam is stealing money again. He picked up two quick fouls (something that never happens, right?) but I think he should play more when we need rebounding, Theo is not as effective under the boards, collecting 5 rebounds in 25 minutes of action – Leave Dalembert (who had 9 in 19 minutes) on the floor until he fouls out, no reason to keep him on the bench in the final minutes when he has four, because the second chance points killed us, again – There is no reason in the world also to start Evans AND Dalembert and still get outrebounded by the other team (42-34), that’s completely unacceptable.