Staff Blog
About Last Night – The Sixers Win Was a Fluke
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| Frank Gunn | Canadian Press |
The Game: The Sixers won by ten in Toronto and already it seems all the teams’
faults are forgotten: Kate Fagan is
praising Iguodala as having suddenly turned it around and the blogs are
ready to marry Willie Green because he hit a couple of open jump shots for
once.
Calm down.
If you look at the box score it appears that the Sixers
dominated from the opening tip – they led 26-13 at the end of the first, the
rout was on, right? Not so. Raptors’ off-guard Anthony Parker was left wide open from three four (!) times in the first five minutes (!), and each time he clanked
one off the rim. They let a career .422 three point shooter get wide open again and again, and again and again he missed. That’s not skill, that’s luck.
To the Sixers credit they turned several of these long rebounds into fast break opportunities and open shots on the other end, which is a skill. To compensate for Parker’s lack of accuracy the Raptors replaced
him with Jason Kapono, who may be the best pure shooter in the league, but who
couldn’t guard a peanut butter sandwich and shouldn’t be getting 30 minutes of
burn in a rec league game. Not
surprisingly he ended up with 5 fouls and was a non-factor on the offensive
side.
Toronto entered into the game as the best three point shooting team in the league, their eight
guards and small forwards contributed an underwhelming 33 points combined and
gave them no chance to win. They shot
just 5-21 from three. The Sixers didn’t
hold them to 5-21 from three, they shot
5-21 from three.
Want more proof this was better than it looked? How about the fact that the Sixers put the
game away against the point guard combination of Will Solomon and Roko Ukic.
The former just spent six years in Europe trying
to make the league and the latter is a rookie trying to get his sea legs in a
league he’s not ready to play in. Both
were playing because Jose Calderon - the eastern conference’s assist leader -
was chilling on the sideline with an injured hammy. Going from Calderon to Ukic is like going from iPhones to smoke signals, it’s no wonder the Sixers suddenly looked good on D.
On top of all that, Willie Green not only passed the ball
nine times, but had nine assists (!).
His previous high was three.
Look, it’s great that the team finally shot the lights out
(54% from the field, and better than that from three), but before anyone crowns
their asses lets remember just how many things had to go right for a game like
this to happen. Last night’s game was a
lot more about the other Tony Parker and Jose Calderon than it was about the Sixers.
The Hero: Willie Green played the greatest game of his
life. 32 minutes, 17 points, 9 assists,
3 threes and no turnovers. Credit where
credit is due.
The Race: Lets do it again …
Other Notes …
- Samuel Dalembert spent the entire night in foul trouble, and
it was his fault. Dalembert is an
excellent off-ball defender, but an absolutely mediocre on-ball one. Against a team like the Raptors, who have two
post players who can score a little bit when guarded, foul trouble is going to
happen. - Marreese Speights had a ballgame picking up Sammy’s minutes
though. M16 is raw (5 fouls in 20
minutes), but put up 12 and 7 and was active all night. Reading everything that Florida was saying about him when he came into the league I was genuinely worried about his motor – it’s only been seven games but the rook has done a lot to alleviate those concerns. - Cheeks kept his rotation to a slim 9 – Ivey, Rush, and Theo all spent the night on the bench.
- AI2 was a rebound away from a triple double, and looked a lot more aggressive that he has recently.
- EB was EB. 25, 8 and 3 shouldn’t be cause to celebrate, and that’s nice to say.
Willie Green 9 assists? yikes!
Nice to hear your take on Mareese – I’m intrigued by and hopeful about that kid – keep that inside news coming
it’s good to read some honest and accurate analysis of the Sixers. you should be covering this team for one of the major papers. I didn’t see last night’s game, but 1)any time Willie puts up numbers like that, it’s gotta be a fluke and 2)it’s easy to believe you about the Raps missing a ton of open 3s, since that’s the same thing that happened in the Hawks game when the Sixers got the 23 point lead (which the players keep alluding to as one of their good halves). And we all saw what happened when Atlanta started making those shots.
And as a sidenote, this Atlanta team is REALLY good. Joe Johnson has elevated himself into i think the 2nd or 3rd best 2-guard in the league, Bibby is the perfect PG for them, Al Horford could easily have been #1 overall pick most years, and Josh Smith is Josh Smith. hard to figure why everyone was sleeping on them coming into the year. now i can finally wear my Jason Terry Hawks jersey with some pride.
The sick thing about the Hawks is that they’re doing all this with Smith on the shelf (!). Joe Johnson has really taken his name to the next level, and Horford is an absolute beast.
The reason I was down on them coming into the year is that their bench is still such a joke. Who do they have if Horford goes down?
and Jason Terry is the future