Enrico said it best in the comments of the game thread: "Maybe they should threaten to take Brand out of the starting line up every night and then he'll finally put up some numbers." Indeed, the Sixers thought they were getting a 20-10 guy when they inked Elton Brand to an $80 million dollar contract, and last night, he finally showed up, in a Sixers 85-83 victory over the Bobcats. (Well, almost--going for 19 and 11 will have to do for now). And the points and boards weren't even the most important part--Brand's biggest impact of the game was on the defensive end, where his six blocks (!!) and three steals (including the game-sealer, which truth told was more about a crummy in-bounds pass) helped make the difference. Brand's performance, his best (and only notably good) effort of the early season, came hot on the heels of rumors that he would be yanked from last night's starting lineup in favor of Rodney Carney or Jason Smith. Not only did Brand end up starting, however, but his hustle (deflecting passes, hitting the floor for loose balls, gobbling up offensive boards) earned him his first fourth-quarter minutes in several games as well. It was still far from all being pretty with Elton--his jump-shot was horribly off all night, even on some short-range gimmes--but he made up for his clanks with his work in the post, scoring on tip-ins, dunks, and even a solid drive past Bobcats defender Tyson Chandler. He looked, y'know...like a power forward. Encouraging stuff. Of course, it's rarely one step forward without at least one step back with this team, so let me temper my praise of one of our starting forwards with worry about the other: What the hell is going on with Thaddeus Young? Thad was an ugly 2-10 last night, and his offensive game couldn't have been much sloppier--tons of drives to the basket in traffic where the ball never even got to the cylinder, even a couple blown fast breaks. I thought this would be a big year for Young, where he took that next step to being an 18-20 point scorer, but he seems to have no idea where he fits in on this offense right now, and he's averaging just 13.5 points a game on 42.4% shooting, looking little like the guy who scored 20 or more in six straight games last season. Here's hoping he gets back on track sooner rather than later. But this was a win, so back to the good stuff. Props to Lou Williams for one of his better games at the point this season, driving and distributing with impressive focus on his way to 19 points (including the game-winning layup) and six assists. Best of all, I didn't see him once do that horrible move where he shot-fakes late in the clock, fails to get the defender in the air, and gets stuck shooting a highly-contested outside jumper. Similarly good were Rodney Carney, who hit two big threes and provided some solid D off the bench, and of course, Andre Iguodala, who also got a little sloppy driving the ball in the second half, but finished with a nice team-high 25 points on 9-19 shooting, as well as keeping Captain Jack in check for most of the evening. The boys almost let this one get away late, but a win is a win, and 5-6 is looking a whole lot prettier right now than 4-7. Next up should be a similarly winnable game against the Grizz in Memphis (now entirely divested of the Iverson hoopla) on Friday, before traveling to Cleveland the next night to take on the Cavs. (Gulp.) In any event, after a week of terrible, terrible basketball, it's good to finally have a Sixers performance I don't have to feel entirely ****** about. Hey, we'll take what we can get, right? (Elton's review of his performance last night, by the way? "That's nothing. I've still got better games to come." We hope so, EB. We really, really hope so.)