Few things about tonight’s Jazz

Sixers meet the Jazz tonight (btw check SLC dunk), and apparently Utah will be again without Okur, Boozer AND Millsap, meaning the three top scorers.

Nothing to be happy for, anyway, because yesterday I’ve watched their 120-115 double OT loss to the Houston Rockets and they are the same tough team that traditionally loves to destroy us, and that won 17 of the last 19 matchups at Salt Lake City.

Few observations after that exciting game, that I enjoyed from tip off to the final horn.

The Jazz are still a very deep team, that will use nine men to keep the intensity high and play hard nosed basketball for 48 minutes – and even more if necessary.

Just as you would expect from a team coached by Jerry Sloan, they never give up, reguardless of what the scoreboard tells. Rockets had a 16 point lead and were up basically the whole game, but had Brewer made both free throws with 8 seconds left in the first OT, they would have probably lost the game.

If you laughed this summer hearing the names Kosta Koufos and Kyrylo Fesenko as part of their roster, you better stop it immediately, because these two guys can ball.

Apart from Fesenko’s terribly ukrainian looking-face, and his awful shooting form (a couple of memorable bricks from the line), he’s more than a big body to throw out there. He’s athletic, can run, jump, dunk, block shots, BOARD. He played some stretches of outstanding defense vs Yao Ming who, as you might know, is NOT Sam Dalembert.

What I missed during vacation

Here we are, blogging again after a well deserved 9 day vacation in the beatiful island of Zanzibar (Africa).

So what did I miss in the meantime? In chronological order:

1) Iguodala was officially signed to a 6 year-80 million extention (the pic shows that both him and Stefanski were happy for the deal…)

2) Sixers brought back Theo Ratliff, signed to a 1 year contract for the veteran minimum

3) Sixers’ GM Ed Stefanski made a conference call with a panel of selected bloggers.

Brian/Depressed fan has the links to all posts of other sites, Sixers.com has the transcript of the conference, Recliner GM has the podcast.

I had the privilege to get the invitation to the conference from Micheal Preston, Sixers’ PR director (thanks again), but unfortunately couldn’t join it because I was out. I will surely be part of the next one, scheduled… well, they don’t know yet, but it will be before the season starts.

Anyway it’s great to see that Sixers keep us bloggers/fans in such high consideration, and that a GM takes some of his time to talk directly to us. This is something new in the NBA, as far as I know, and hopefully it becomes a trend and eventually a standard for every team. Hats off to Stefanski and the Sixers’ public relations dept for setting up this.

4) Sixers brought back Jeff Ruland also, this time as an assistant coach

5) USA Team won the gold medal at the Olympics in China, beating Spain after a fantastic game. 

My quick takes on the aforementioned subjects are:

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.

Sixers are NOT the Golden State Warriors

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They are the Golden State Warriors, we are the Phiadelphia Seventy-Sixers. And it showed.

Sixers (26-33, .441) tried to run with Nelson’s team but the 119-97 final score is there to prove that they didn’t manage.

Golden State led wire to wire and the game lasted basically 26 minutes, until Webber scored the first four points after the break (71-52).

I mean, when an immobile Chris effin’ Webber drives past Dalembert to score on a layup (…) and then hits a long jumper, the same shot he frontrimmed for nearly two years as a Sixer, you know you are done.  

“Be like Mike !!”. You remember the old Gatorade commercial? Hey, I tried hard, and I drank a lot of Gatorade, but still I couldn’t jump a newspaper.

“Be like the Warriors !!”. Sixers tried as well, but they were missing some key ingredients last night: three point & outside shooting, circulation, hustle.

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.

My beloved Clippers buried

In the entry below you can read why Clippers are “beloved”. 

In this one you will read why last night’s Sixers were a no match for them, and how the final 101-80 score tells the absolute truth, for once.

Another truth is that at 21-30 (.412) and after the third consecutive win, Sixers are, tied with Indiana, 1/2 game below the “dangerous” 8th spot that would mean playoffs: Nets are there at 21-29.

Clippers were on the second night of a back-to-back, after Friday’s nice win at Toronto, and offered little resistence to a fast, athletic, always running Sixers team that trailed only for 20 seconds (2-4 in the first).

I’ll keep the recap very short because, really, the game was never in question.

In the FIRST QUARTER Sixers scored on eight consecutive possessions and knocked down 9 of their first 11 shots (with an inspired Andre Miller – a former Clipper but not exactly missed in LA… –  going 4/4). The spectacular dunk by Willie Green that you see in the picture marked a 26-17 Sixers lead, but at the end it was 29-25. Sixers shot 13/17 (77% !!) and Miller had 10 points and 4 dimes in the quarter, while Maggette had 10 and Mobley 9 on the other side.

Sixers rip Bucks for record setting win

Simple as that.

It doesn’t happen often to see this kind of trashing so even a tanker like me has to enjoy the 112-69 win over the Bucks (18-28, .391) that will go down as “the largest win in 12 seasons at the Wachovia center”.

I was almost embarassed to see Milwaukee being buried like that and with our margin getting wider and wider I was thinking about my friends Alex & Frank from Brew Hoop, the fine Bucks blog. Hey, no bragging at all here, we’ve been so many times on the other side, the losing one, that we know how it feels and don’t want to can’t make fun of our opponents.

Bucks were playing on the second night of a back-to-back, and starters Micheal Redd and Desmond Mason didn’t even suit up because of injuries, bust this doesn’t take anything out of the Sixers performance, and shouldn’t be used as an excuse for them either. We simply outplayed them in every possible way, from start to finish.

No need to go with the quarter by quarter analysis this time (to sum it up: we gained the lead at 8-6 in the first and progressively extended it to 51-32 at the break, 77-47 in the third and 99-52 in the fourth: that was +47 folks…),  let’s focus on few interesting flashes.

Cheeks and rims are tankers’ best allies

Kinda depressing.

After the 103-110 home loss to the Indiana Pacers (16-26, .381) I switched to New Orleans-Milwaukee and I watched all that I would like to see from my team: full court intensity, organized basketball, hustle plays, spectacular baskets, MADE SHOTS, an enthusiastic crowd, A TRUE LEADER on the floor… the contrast with what I had just seen earlier was stunning. I hope we will reach all those soon.

As of now, I am here commenting another disappointing home loss to a below average team (exactly like us), that was without its best player (Jermaine O’Neal) and that had another key contributor in the first half sidelined by an injury in the second (Troy Murphy). It was definitely a sweet comeback home for Philly guy Jim O’ Brien.

So we are here heading for the lottery again.

Tankers now have some secret allies: one is on our bench and is a human being, the others are inanimated, immobile things that Sixers players often “use” to lose games: the Wachovia center’s rims.

Who follows this blog knows perhaps that I was never a great Cheeks fan. A legend as a player, good guy and everything, but not exactly a great baskebtabll mind, in my humble opinion. To his credit he was never given lot of talent to work with, this year more than ever. But you have some signs that indicate that he didn’t great even when he had some (how about the 5-19 start of last year for a team with Iverson, Webber and Iguodala ??) But let’s focus on present.

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).

The wrong Bell rang

Not the Liberty Bell, but Charlie.

Bucks guard had 21 points with 4 triples and a nice game off the bench to lead Milwaukee to a 87-83 win last night in your empty-as-usual Wachovia Center (14-21, .400).

It was an ugly show and a display of overall poor basketball between two sorry ass teams that at the end become Sixers fourth straight loss, and Bucks third consecutive win on the road. I honestly can’t blame who decided to stay home this time.

Philly fans realized it was going to be another long night two seconds after the tip off (…), when Reggie Evans blew a layup. A 2-12 break followed, with Sixers shooting 1/6 and Bucks 5/6. So much for the “get off to a quick start” theory. Sam Dalembert with three low post moves (!!!) helped us getting back in the game and Sixers tied it at 16, but then came three empty possessions to take a possible lead.

Sixers missed their last 7 shots of the quarter (8/25 at the end, 32%…) and Milwaukee had a 8-0 run to close it with your usual buzzer beater, this time by Bell: 17-26 with Mo Williams pacing the scorers with 9 points on 4/4. Sixers 5 turnovers gave them a lot of help, no doubt.