I agree that the Raptors win was not a huge deal.  But it was a good win.  I dont think anyone is that jacked over that win though, no need to mute our enthuasium.  It was just a win against a quality opponent for the 1st time, and a road win for the 1st time, and on top of that against a opponent that we have struggled against (and already lost to once this season).  It’s a start, now lets build on it tonight.

It seems to me that even though Bosh gives us fits every time we play the Raptors, it’s the 3-pointers that really kill us.  Think about how many 3’s we give up to Toronto every time we play them.  Well, on Wednesday, Calderon was 0-2, Parker was 0-6, Moon was 1-4, Kapono was 1-2, Bargnani was 1-3, and Solomon was 2-4.  That’s 5-21 as a team.

There are a couple of reasons why I’m not overly excited by this though.  Calderon only played 25 minutes and 3/4 of that time he was nursing that bad hammy, which certainly affected him.  Also, Parker had a bad shooting night.  He had some open looks and just missed them.  I just have the sense that the subpar production from their backcourt made more of an impact on Toronto’s 3-point shooting than our defense did, you know?  If we held the Raptors to 5-21 3pt% on a normal night, I’d feel a lot better about us.

That’s what concerns me about tonight’s game.  We always have trouble defending the 3 and, as a result, always have a tough time beating teams that shoot it well (and frequently).  Jim O’Brien knows this very well.  We could be looking at a tough night on the road, depending on the health of Granger and Murphy.

Glad to hear you like Rush!  I have been a faithful fan for 30 years.  If you haven’t seen them live, you must.  They put on a fantastic show.  It’s worth the money.  I see them every time they come around, which sadly won’t be many more times as  I’m sure they’ll be hanging them up soon.

Right now on Sixers.com, I saw their Sixers-Pacers preview saying that the Sixers lead the league in fastbreak points, 5th in points in the paint, and 9th in 3PT %.  

The Pacers, surprisingly without a proper frontcourt, are 4th in the NBA in blocks with 6.1 blocks per game. 

The Sixers have to attack the rim at will, get more free throws made and attempted, defend the perimeter, limit their turnovers and a great bonus would be our three point production and our bench coming alive. It has sure potential to do so for the Sixers.  Get Rush and Marshall involved!

A family matchup between Brandon and Kareem!

There is no question that we played better and that is encouraging.  HOWEVER, Calderon was out for most of the game and Parker was off (Moon didn’t give them much either).  That really impacted their guard play, which I think swung things in our favor.  To our credit, we took advantage of it and won the game but, even though I know a win is a win, we did catch a bit of a break.

Here are the overall stats between these two teams in last season’s three meetings:

Rebounds:
 (PHI: 50.3)               (IND: 42)

3 pts:
(PHI: 8/39–20.5%)               (IND:  30/73–41.1%)

FG%
(PHI: 99/261–37.9%)    (IND: 121/256–47.2%)

TOs:
(PHI: 14.3)                    (IND: 15.3)

FT%
(PHI: 58/88–65.9%)              (IND:  25/36–69.4%)

Hopefully, with a better frontcourt and the frontcourt advantage, along with some playing time for our perimeter shooters, we should be able to improve on those areas.  Let’s keep the TOs down and attempt more FTs (and make them), the Sixers should be great.  Defend the perimeter like last Wednesday and it should be a blueprint of success for the Sixers!!

Quality win, but this is a team we SHOULD be running the break with easily, and playing great defense against.  I’ll be impressed when we do this against a half court oriented team like the Rockets, Jazz, Detroit, Orlando, etc.  That said…I’m still sticking to my original mantra: for the first 20 games, if we hover around .500 and show great effort and intensity in our team defense, after 20 games the offense will start to click.

Go Sixers! 

Bski: Long live Rush!  I was jamming out in my apt to Spirit of Radio earlier in the week, I always forget how much ass they kick.

Allen Iverson: He looked real good in tonight’s game against the Warriors on TNT.  He would have easily scored 30, but missed a lot of shots 2-4 feet from the basket that he’d normally make, that were shots almost any other player in the league could not have even created (and they all came within the flow of the offense).  He’s been much more unselfish with Detroit so far than he’s been with the Nuggets, and as always, has been shredding the defense and attacking the rim aggressively. 

I’m rooting so hard for him to mesh well with his teammates in Detroit…I’d love to see AI make one last legitimate push to get to the Conference Finals (no WAY they’d ever beat Boston though) to finally prove some of the doubters wrong that say he’s not a winner. 

I know people can be very split with AI’s game…many people point to his shot selection and the need to over-dominate the ball as the reason he never found success.  I certainly agree with those accusations (up to a point), but I will definitely agree with what Charles Barkley said tonight after the J Thompson interview: “Allen Iverson has never been on a good team.  Let me change that…he’s been on some good teams, but he’s never been on a great team.” 

With the Nugget’s frontcourt having been so banged up or recovering from injury (Nene/K-Mart), and STILL having never played with a legitimate PG, and a team that could hide his defensive defficiencies because they were horribly defensively coached by Karl, I never really liked Denver as an ideal spot for him. 

This Detroit team though…the AI-Sheed combo I really think is going to become dangerous, and with Rip, Stuckey and Prince chipping in on offense, and the young bigs like Maxiel, Amir and Hermann providing a spark…I’d expect come January and afterwards for that Detroit team to really start taking off.  I love the job Michael Curry’s done so far, he really holds people accountable and is a tough nosed guy.