I've been waiting for this type of game from the Sixers for a little over seven months now, so you can understand my excitement. Sure, we've pummeled the Knicks and Kings on our home court, but neither one was a legitimate playoff team. Does anyone remember the quick knockouts Rocky had before his bout with Clubber Lane in Rocky III? No. I was waiting for a win against a good team. A playoff team. A team that had already knocked us out. Tonight I got that win and the scene in my bedroom was much like the end of this one this one. Except I wasn't hugging anyone, but myself. Don't get me wrong, the Knicks are looking pretty good under Mikey D right now, but they're still the Knicks dude. Toronto was my Clubber Lane.
I just finished writing my essay and felt like writing about tonight's brilliance again. I'm as ecstatic as this weatherman stalker about tonight's win, just not as creepy. I'm not sure how many more of these types of games we'll have this year, so I'm enjoying this one like this kid is enjoying his Nintendo 64. This will probably be an unorganized rant/celebration, but that's expected from me.
Here's highlights of the wonderful game. The high-definition highlights are magical. Too bad League Pass insists on giving me a fuzzy picture. Oh, yeah. Don't pay any attention to that Italian-Andrea-dude crossing Reggie Evans or posterizing Dalembert and Speights at the same time. I've already erased both from my memory.
Anyway, I'm getting away from the game here. As I mentioned before, we had two wins under our belt coming into tonight. They were two home wins, both coming against inferior opponents. Neither was very satisfying to me. I still felt that we could've played better in both of those games and neither win really had that "Killer Instinct" feel to it. Tonight's game was different. We traded blows with a playoff team. We built a big lead in the early stages and sustained every Raptors run with a run of our own and came out on top. We had no answer for their so-called "Twin Towers" and they had no answer for Elton Brand. For the first time all season, I felt that we had a certain swagger to our team. Earlier in the season I got the vibe, that we were almost too confident, borderline cocky. Tonight we played with energy, passion, heart and most importantly we didn't come out expecting to beat anyone. Even if we ended up losing a nail-biter, this would've been our best game of the season, in my opinion.
The win was great, but other telling things stood out to me in the game. For the second straight night Andre Iguodala looked more comfortable on the court. The offense ran through him and Elton tonight and it should continue to be that way. I think I also see a rotation...maybe. It looks like Willie Green is going to be the first guy off the bench in most instances and that's fine with me if he plays like he did tonight. Lou hasn't been so hot this season anyway. Speights also looks to be the first big off the bench and that's exciting.
I'm not quite sure where I'm going with the rest of this, since I already did a recap, so I should probably stop. I might wake up in the middle of the night to celebrate again, but for now I've said all I needed to say.
I leave you with this.