Sixers vs Nuggets: Are you ...

Game not as close as it looked

The Sixers led through the first 3 quarters primarily on the back of Andre Iguodala, who had 18 points at half time. A strong game from Iguodala is certainly encouraging, as he was one of the people I feared would take a serious hit in the half court. That being said, that performance is not something that can be expected of him on a night by night basis, and it made the starting unit look more efficient offensively than it probably is.

Even with that, the Sixers had one of their least efficient offensive games of the season, both in terms of eFG% (4th worst) and offensive rating (5th worst).

Not as bad as they looked in the 4th, not as good as they looked in the first half. This is still probably a mid-pack team offensively, which won't make up for the porous defense.

The defense

The defense had one of its better games, even with the Nuggets shooting 11-18 from downtown. In fact, the 3 point defense was probably less aggravating than it has in the past, as it seemed a lot of the made three's were either in transition or offensive rebounds the Nuggets collected, not off of too much switching from dribble penetration. That's not to say it's not a problem, just that it's not the same problem that's been this teams bugaboo in the first quarter of the season. In the end, the Sixers kept the Nuggets at a 109.4 offensive rating, below both the Sixers opponents average on the year (112.5) and the Nuggets average on the year (114.2).

I spend a lot of time (rightly so, I believe) complaining about Eddie Jordan, but he made the right decision this time on the starting lineup. After all of the pregame talk was centered around the probability of him running out a small lineup (Iverson, Green, Iguodala, Young, Dalembert) he made the right call and put Elton Brand back in the starting lineup. The Sixers won the rebounding battle convincingly, and that played a big part in building their lead through three quarters.

Let's hope Jordan realizes this when Williams comes back. An Iverson/Williams backcourt would be the worst in the league defensively.

The overall job on Carmelo Anthony was amazing, spearheaded by Andre Iguodala.

Anemic Bench

To say the bench was poor would be a drastic understatement. A combined 2 points on 1-15 shooting just isn't going to get it done. Had the bench been a little more productive the Sixers could have been in prime position to win a game they should have had no business winning. Williams and Speights aren't going to help this team overcome some of its defensive hurdles, but they should help prevent offensive lulls like what happened last night.

Word coming from Tom Moore is that Holiday is feeling better and is hopeful to play on Wednesday. It will be interesting to see what his role is now with Iverson on the roster. Holiday should get ahead of Royal Ivey in the rotation, and it will be interesting to see how the minutes get split with him and Willie Green. The Sixers really could have used him defending Ty Lawson last night.

What does Iverson have left ?

Aging is generally not a graceful process for 5'11" guards with games built on getting into the lane and questionable outside shots. Iverson saw a fairly rapid decline between his age 32 and 33 seasons, and he needs to buck that trend for the Sixers to have any hope of this move working out as anything more than a sentimentality based attendance boost. He looked like he lost a step, and when he did get in the lane he seemed to have trouble getting his shot off in traffic. Obviously, there's a large degree of rust that can be expected, as the injury and subsequent layoff have caused Iverson to miss a lot of basketball time, both in terms of practice and game speed. I would be lying if I said I wasn't slightly concerned, though.

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