Finally. The Sixers look like they are starting to turn their season around, playing quality basketball for the past week or so. Beginning with the day after Christmas against the Carmelo-less Nuggets, the Sixers have been playing the style of basketball that sent them on their late season run and into the playoffs last season. And the loss, yes the loss, against San Antonio on Saturday was arguably their best game of the year.
Tonight the Sixers came back to Philadelphia after a brutal road trip and pulled out a solid victory against a pretty good Western Conference team. Given, they were without their two best defensive players in Ron Artest and Shane Battier and their franchise guy, T-Mac looked far from 100%, I'll still chalk it up as a quality win. It wasn't as easy as it could've of been, but these are the 2008-2009 Philadelphia 76ers folks.
I love the way the team's playing without Brand. It will be interesting to see if Iguodala and Miller continue to play well when he returns. I'll be posting on that subject a couple of times in the near future. It's been on my mind lately. One more thing before we get into stats. With Theo basically replicating what Dalembert does on the court and Speights playing the way he is, Dalembert is insanely expendable. Stefanski needs to find a way to move him.
Key Stats:
-19-35 from the line. I'm sorry, but there's no excuse for that.
-56% from the floor
-17 offensive rebounds allowed
-M16 scored 15 points, grabbed 8 boards and blocked 4 shots.
-Rockets were 5-19 from downtown. Much better.
-28 points from Iggy. We still haven't had a player score 30 all season.
Great performances:
-Iguodala
-Speights
Good performances:
-Lou-Will
-Royal Ivey
Bad/Not up to par performances:
-Andre Miller
Next up: @ Milwaukee tomorrow night, a very winnable game and one the Sixers have to have with another tough stretch on the horizon.