Box Score

Rufus on Fire

The Sixers were without two of their best players tonight -- Jrue Holiday (hamstring) and Marreese Speights (no longer with team) -- so it's no surprise they lost to the Bobcats. What is surprising however; is another stinker from #2 draft pick Evan Turner. When word broke that neither Jrue or Mo were playing I thought Evan was a lock to breakout -- not the case. In fact, it might have been his worst performance; it's hard to tell since he's completely sucked the past three games. 

A few game notes after the jump:

• I don't know what else to say about Evan Turner. He's been awful. I didn't expect him to set the world (or the city of Cleveland) on fire from the get-go, but I never envisioned he'd play this poorly. Based on pure speculation I'd say he leads the Sixers Summer League team in three categories: fouls, turnovers, and bad body language. None of these are good things, obviously. Whether it's scoring on a would-be and 1 -- only to be called for an offense foul -- or dribbling the ball off his foot, nothing is going Evan Turner's way right now. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't at least 1% worried at this point, but certainly don't need to be talked off the edge, yet. The most frightening thing is the unknown -- no one knows exactly why Turner is struggling so much. 
• Notable Turner notes from tonight: His dribbling was extremely sloppy. He could not create his own shot. He had a few nice passes and good rebounding instincts. His defense has been no where near as good as advertised. His body language was awful. 
• Jodie Meeks was the Sixers best player tonight and it wasn't even close. The more I see him play, the more impressed I become. Tonight he showed that he's a willing passer. He was a tough, active defender. He was decisive and strong in his drives to the hoop. He shot lights out from downtown (4-9). He ran the floor well. And there were some instances where he showed a good ability to move without the ball. Ask anyone, I'm the second biggest Lou Williams fan on this blog, but the more I watch the Jodiac Killer, the more comfortable I become with finding a suitor for Lou.
• Ndudi Ebi has surpassed Cedric Simmons on my list of bigs I want the Sixers to invite to training camp. He had some good -- not great -- activity on the boards, and really impressed me with his three-point range (3-4). Ebi's career DREB% and BLK% in the D-League are 17.3 and 5.3 respectively. However; he hasn't played since 06-07. If his shooting stroke is any indication, he's clearly improved since then.