Sixers Game Thoughts

In the quest for lottery balls, today's loss more than cancels out the surprising win against the Raptors two days earlier. This loss had it all. Atrocious defense, crazy lineups, blaming his star players, a coach who looked like he didn't car, turnovers galore, and a rookie continuing to evolve.

Quick Thoughts:

• Jrue Holiday is now leading the team in points per minute over the last 5.
  
• On Jrue, he obviously had another good game scoring the ball, and had another good game from downtown (2-4). He got beat a couple of times on dribble penetration, and had some lazy turnovers late, but overall was one of the few bright spots.
  
• Dalembert also played well, although surprisingly had the worst plus/minus on the team. That being said, why we decided to run our offense through him and his midrange game to start the game I'll never know.
  
• Like Eddie Jordan making a substitution then forgetting there was only one second left on the shot clock?
  
• Young hustled. Like the defensive rebounds. He was a threat to turn the ball over every time he put the ball on the floor or tried to pass.
  
• Similarly, Louis Williams had more luck throwing to the Pacers tonight than the Sixers.
  
• Elton Brand and Andre Iguodala played, I think. Jordan sat them for the final 19:28 and 15:21, respectively. When asked about it post game, Jordan said he stuck with the guys who gave him energy at the end. When pressed on whether Iguodala and Brand failed to provide energy, he said not as much as the group at the end.
  (any time you're playing Kapono over Iguodala for extended periods of time, I disagree with the coaching strategy. Since we're trying to tank and get Jordan fired? I'll live with it.
  
• Meeks made his first field goal as a Sixer. Beginning of an era.
  

Charlotte on the tail end of a back to back? Another losable game. If the Sixers can go 3-10 over their last 13, this team may be on the precipice of blowing up internally, if they haven't already.

I have to thank the Sixers for so definitively clearing up any potential confusion on their basketball aptitude. If anybody was left wondering whether the team was "going uptown" by winning 6 of their previous 8, especially after a particularly impressive win over San Antonio the night before, that question has been answered.

In fairness, it has been answered repeatedly before, including the game immediately preceeding the spurs game, a 105-78 drubbing at the hands of the Heat. This is simply the latest reaffirmation.

Winning 6 of 8 hasn't changed who this team is, what their problems are, and what the future holds for this team. All it did was put a mask over the teams problems while hurting their chances for a top 5 pick.

Typically, this part of the post is reserved for "those crazy lineups Eddie Jordan through out", and "how badly the Sixers played defensively when Jrue and Dalembert got the short hook from Jordan". Last night that wasn't really the case. The game was lost in the second quarter, beginning while both Holiday and Dalembert were on the court. Did it get worse when Young was brought in for Dalembert? Yeah, but it was already snowballing at that point, and scoring 1 point over the final 4+ minutes of the second quarter is going to lose more ballgames than not. Also, in the world of crazy lineups, Holiday, Iverson, Iguodala, Young and Brand are one of Jordan's tamer ones.

To be honest, my desire to write lengthy game recaps is dwindling. How often can you nitpick at the same mistakes repeated over and over? As tedious as it probably gets for you to read, it's equally tedious for me to write. As such, expect post-game posts to be more of the bullet-point, quick thought variety than full recaps.

Thoughts:

For once, I'm not going to sit down and complain about Eddie Jordan and his perplexing rotations the entire recap.

Iverson and Williams did not spend one second on the court together, and that was key. Young played more at small forward than he did at power forward, and Jordan really only went small when Odom came in at power forward. Dalembert played the third most minutes he has all year, a large portion with Brand at power forward. We even saw considerable time with Young and Iguodala on the wings together.

That's not to say it was perfect. I would have preferred more Holiday and less Green, not only because my primary objective at this point is player development but also because I think he could have come in handy down the stretch. I also thought the small amount of time young played at power forward was too much, , and was generally exploited every time it happened.

But, because of my low expectations (reinforced by his continual mistakes), I grade Jordan on a curve. He wasn't the reason they lost this game. The Lakers are simply better, and it would have taken a near perfect game for the Sixers to win. They're simply outclassed from a talent level.

Short pre-game post. If there was ever a time to test Jordan's stubbornness, tonight's the game. With the mismatches the Lakers through out there, with Kobe at SG, Artest at SF, Gasol at PF and Bynum at C (with Odom off the bench), this is a classic game to play a "big" wing rotation (with Andre Iguodala at shooting guard). If Young plays at the power forward against Gasol, or if either Williams or Iverson are on Kobe (or really anyone other than Iguodala, Jrue or possibly Carney), we're in trouble. This is the perfect game to get Young at small forward and find minutes for Carney.

Will Jordan? Doubtful. We need to score the ball, after-all.

Prediction: Lakers by 20.

Busy day today, so this is going to be quick. I have updated the Boxscore to include the rotations, which is also in the searchable rotations database.

This entire thing needs to be prefaced with how bad the Pacers are, particularly offensively. The defensive went through periods of playing well, followed by lulls where they did just enough not to blow the lead.

A great win over a top 5 team is a rare occurrence in and of itself. 6-14 at home heading into the game, the Sixers had previously beaten one team (New Orleans) at home who was over .500 at the time of the game. But when it comes with a sensible lineup change from Eddie Jordan? That's cause for celebration. At least on the surface.

Obviously, there's a lot to discuss about last night's game. First and foremost, the lineup change. Read what I think about the new starting lineup and what I expect going forward after the jump.

I'm too tired to put up a long recap tonight, so I'll just post a few quick thoughts. Tired physically, but perhaps more than that tired of complaining about the same thing over and over. If I sound like a broken record, I apologize. How many times can you post "starting Iverson and Williams in the backcourt is crazy" before it gets redundant?

You can follow some of my in-game thoughts by heading over to my Twitter log.

In the end, this was the perfect loss. One game closer to a change, and one game where Holiday gains experience by playing down the stretch. Even Young and Speights got some second half burn (albeit somewhat limited).

After winning 3 of the previous 4, the Sixers were starting to gel. Playing their best ball of the year, getting after it on the defensive end, closing out games. On their way uptown, if you will.

Or, at least, that's what Eddie Jordan would have you believe.

Eddie Jordan had a momentary lapse of judgement by letting Jrue Holiday play in close wins against New Orleans and Detroit, but quickly corrected that by not playing him at all in the second half in a win against Sacramento where he played tremendously in the first half, helping the Sixers build their big lead.

Tonight, with the Sixers up big at the half, Eddie Jordan once again forgot about Jrue Holiday. The rookie didn't see the court in the second half (plus overtime) for the second game in a row.

I'm going to keep this real short. If the Sixers play the small lineup with Thad at the 4 for more than 25 minutes, they'll lose. If they play Dalembert + Brand for 20+ minutes together, they'll win. Keep Love and Jefferson off the offensive glass and keep Flynn and Sessions out of the lane and the Sixes have the talent to win going away. All Eddie Jordan has to do is resist the urge to run small ball and put a good defender at the point of attack and force their PG's into low percentage jumpshots.

Should be easy.

In a game that presented matchup problems galore, and a game that I predicted the Sixers to lose because of that, last night's win was a pleasant surprise.

Pleasant, but frustrating as well.

Going into the game, my major concern was defending the Kings big backcourt. I even mentioned how I wanted to see Iguodala moved to the 2 at times to combat this.

The last time these two teams met, the Sixers were had virtually their entire arsenal available (with the exception of Willie Green), while the Kings were missing star guards Kevin Martin and Tyreke Evans. The Sixers were able to break away in the 4th quarter, giving them a two-game winning streak, matching their longest of the season.

This is a very different Kings team they'll be seeing tonight.

Despite coming into the game riding a two game losing streak, the Knicks have been playing fairly good ball of late, going 13-8 since the beginning of December. Still, they're a team that, because of their jump-shooting nature, doesn't get to the line nor offensive rebound particularly well, and certainly provided the Sixers with a winnable game had they executed down the stretch.

Before the game I said I only wanted to see one thing. I wanted to see Eddie Jordan change things up and play Jrue Holiday on Chris Paul. That was all I wanted out of this game. That wish didn't come true in the sense that Iverson/Williams still started in the backcourt, but Jrue Holiday did play the entire 4th quarter in a close game, and by and large the rookie responded.

That doesn't mean Holdiay played flawlessly. He did get beat at times by Paul off the dribble, and got caught in a few poorly conceived switches, but by and large did an admirable job against the best point guard in the game, with Jrue even out-producing Chris Paul in the 4th quarter (6 points, 1 assist, 2 rebounds for Jrue against 5 points, 0 assists, 1 rebound for Paul). That kind of experience is invaluable for the rookie, and having played a defensive lineup down the stretch (that included Holiday, Iguodala, and Dalembert on the floor at all times, with Brand and Carney thrown in) might actually help us win a game or two, as we did tonight.

The Sixers have held a double digit lead in each of the past 8 games. Not trading baskets with the opposition might help us hold onto a few.

I'm not going to get too amped on the win as a whole, as I think people are slightly over-stating how hot New Orleans was heading into the game. Yes, they had won 6 in a row, which by its strictest definition made them the hottest team in the league. That being said, they are 5-14 on the road this year, and were playing on the tail end of a back to back having struggled to pull out a win at Washington the night before. Still, it would be hard not to classify this as a solid win, if for no other reason than how they won.

Quick Thoughts after the jump.

Some quick thoughts before I call it a night. I've entered the rotational data, which is now both in the searchable database as well as in last night's boxscore

Click below to continue reading my post-game thoughts.

This is going to be brief, as I got caught up after the game and don't have the time to do a full write-up right now, but this is absolutely a game I want to talk about in-depth. Luckily the schedule makers have done as a favor as the Sixers have the next two nights off.

If you wanted to know everything about what is wrong with this team, last night's game gave you plenty of examples. If you want to know why Eddie Jordan needs to be gone pronto, last night provided some great examples.

If you want to know what happens to the Sixers when they play teams (even bad teams) at full strength, last night's what happens.

Last night is what should have happened Sunday against the undermanned Nuggets.

Last night was absolutely pitiful. If you wanted a case study on a coach without a feel for the game who is going to continually make the same mistakes over and over, last night was it.

Read on for a few quick thoughts before I really delve into it tomorrow.