A badly needed 104-101 WIN for the Sixers, the stem the bleeding from deflating losses to the Cavs and Thunder.
On a side note, now that we are staring the collapse on the franchise dead in the eye, I’m trying to gauge where we are on the Andrew Bynum Stages of Grief.
South Philly native, La Salle University grad, and now shellshocked Sixers GM, Tony Dileo seems mired in Stage 3, “Anger/Bargaining”…
“Bynum is out indefinitely. There is no timeline. Only Andrew can tell you that. Only his body can tell you that.”
“His knees now and the MRIs are not the same (as they were at the time of the trade); it’s a different type (of) situation. At the time of the trade, we had four doctors look at his MRI; we knew it was a calculated risk. We also knew we were getting the second-best center in the league, a franchise-type player. We took that risk.”
“(The bowling injury) is an unfortunate situation; when the cartilage is in a weakened state anything can happen. Basically, you can’t do anything that is going to jeopardize any kind of rehab.”
“We want to focus on our team now and put this behind us.”
I have to say, I feel bad for Dileo. Who is going to have to stake his professional career on whether to double down on a bad bet and resign Andrew Bynum, if for no other reason than that, even if we don’t, we are already screwed.
I bet he wishes he was the other Tony Dileo right now (and maybe always…)
Personally, I’ve reached Stage 4 “Depression, Reflection, and Loneliness”. When I posted the Icarian Flight piece a couple weeks ago, I at least thought we’d fly for a little bit, until alas, the too hot Sun would punish our bold effrontery, and we would crash to Earth with tragic grace and molten wax, and then our beautiful and broken body would get carried away by naked Sea Nymphs.
Umm… not so much. It looks like we are getting one of these instead…
Oh well…
ON TO THE GAME!
The Suns hail from beautiful Phoenix Arizona, heated rival of Philadelphia for the coveted title of “Biggest American City that No One Wants To Visit”.
Phoenix had briefly passed Philly in mid decade estimates, until the actual Census showed that phoenix had whole neighborhoods with nobody in them, and that the City Officials had been putting hats on cacti in an effort to beef up their population counts…
Lovely Phoenix…
While in some ways a mirror image of the Sixers (a lot of decent players, no Stars, painfully average), the Suns play a proportionally inverse style of Basketball. A run and gun outfit, Phoenix plays at 3rd fastest pace in the league, Philadelphia ranks as a glacial 25th. The Sixers shockingly have the NBA’s 3rd ranked defense, while the Suns have are a lowly 23rd.
Which style would prevail? Once again the Sixers allow themselves to get chivied into a shootout. Only a Star-esque performance for budding semi-star Jrue Holiday saved the Sixers bacon. You know what, after last nights 33pts/13ast performance, Holiday has now earned Class-1 Brown Dwarf Star status from me. Welcome to the Cosmos, Jrue.
THE GOOD:
1) Jrue “Smiles” “Class-1 Brown Dwarf” Holiday Goes off for 33pts on 21 shots. 13assists to 2 turnovers. You are MADE of STAR STUFF!
2) Maalik Wayns: Oh man, Maalik finds himself 7 shots in 7 minutes. Wow. here is his complete state line
7minutes, 3-7 from the field, 7pts, 0reb, 0ast, 0stl, 0blk. if they kept statistics on attempted assists and rebounds, that would have also been zero. Why is this in THE GOOD? i get to show this picture.
3) Lavoy Allen. We are clearly grading on the curve with the Sixers frontcourt, but Lavoy gave us 26 plausible minutes at the Center position, 11pts/6reb/2blk. Someone give Lavoy a bellyrub.
4) the 3 ball. Sixers make 9 at a 47% clip. Guess who went 3 for 5 last night and is now shooting 43% on the season. I’ll give you 15 guesses, and you would probably need all of them, EVAN TURNER. Amazingly he still shoots like a 12 year old girl….
THE BAD:
1) Suns Defense. With Gortat and Jermaine O’neil the Suns have decent rim protection, why are they so horrible? This play illumintes. Gortat goes for the rebound, and the other 4(!) Suns players take a moment to admire the breathtaking beauty of a Goran Dragic missed 3. That’s the right approach guys, live in the moment, you don’t want to be on your deathbed thinking about all the time you wasted not watching Goran Dragic miss jumpshots..
By the way, Holiday leaks out for the uncontested dunk
2) Another bad defensive play in the third. Hawes in the high post, with an undefended Jason Richardson waving with both arms for the basketball. Hawes, apparently going blind, doesn’t see him (and you know, that would actually explain a lot). Passes to Holiday, Richardson stomps in exasperation. Holiady then finds the STILL UNGUARDED Jason Richardson. Swishes the 3. Richardson was left open the entire possession.
3) Sixers post defense. Banged for 42 points in the paint, The Sixers had no answer for Gortat, O’Neil, or even Micheal Beasley. They seemed to score at will, the performance of the Spencer/Kwame/Lavoy/Moultrie frontcourt raises further questions about what in Gods name this organization was thinking before it made the Bynum trade. a Kwame/Spencer Frontline was actually the plan?!?!
Here’s the 2nd of Gortat’s back to back and-1’s against Hawes in the 2nd half.
THE UGLY:
Spencer Hawes again. Same deal as always. An anemic 6 points in 20 minutes. horrible defense, and miserly 2 rebounds, and 87 failed screens. In fairness to him, maybe he’s going blind…
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