The Sixers got edged out by the Grizzlies last night in one of the season's more discouraging losses. A career night for Lou Williams--31 points on 12-16 shooting, five assists, six steals--proved insufficient, as the Sixers got creamed on the boards (a 48-28 differential, with no one Liberty Baller grabbing more than six), and couldn't find a way to silence Rudy Gay, who finished with a scorching 33 points, including a game-sealing two in the final minute where no one rotated over to guard him. (Zumoff's devastated call of "And..........DOWN it goes!" was probably the most anguished I've ever heard our announcer). The Grizz held on for a 102-97 win.
Eddie Jordan was not amused. "There were two different teams out there tonight," said Fast Eddie. "One sort of rallied around each other, and the other fragmented. That's just being honest, like I like to be. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. We had five individuals on the floor. We didn't rally around each other. We should have won this game." He elaborated a little, singling out the rebounding disadvantage as a key reason for the loss. "It's an old saying: 'If you don't bite as puppies, you're not going to bite as dogs,'" said Ed. "And if you didn't rebound as a young man or teenager, you aren't going to rebound when it's time to be a man. We just don't have those type of guys right now."
The loss hurts for a couple reasons. One, is that Memphis isn't exactly the league elite--they have tons of offensive firepower, but that only equated to three actual wins so far this season before last night. Two, is that the win could've gotten the Sixers back up to .500 (6-6), and given a relatively-decent home turnout some actual good feelings about this team for once. And three, and perhaps most importantly, it would've been a nice way to send the team off, giving them some confidence as they begin a stretch where they play five of six games on the road, and all against good teams--Washington and San Antonio are the only ones with sub-.500 records, and they might be the two scariest sub-.500 teams in the NBA.
Tonight's unenviable task: Taking on LeBron James and the Cavaliers in Cleveland. Now, the Cavs have not been quite as dominant as expected, a lacking largely attributable to age and injury. But they still have a 9-4 record, they still have the best basketball player in the galaxy, and I'm not exactly looking forward to seeing how our team responds to a demoralizing loss on the second night of a back-to-back against them, in their home building. The last time the two teams played, a full-strength Philly squad only managed to eke out a one-point OT victory against a Cavs team sitting James, Mo Williams and Zydrunas Ilgauskas. Not exactly a bragging-rights W.
The one plus to take out of last night, besides Lou's breakout (which really was quite nice--seeing him both hit from long range and find that burst to the hole in the open court makes me wonder if he might have a higher ceiling than I previously thought), was Elton Brand's continued solid play on the offensive end. A second-straight season-high with 22 points, on 8-14 shooting, with a couple outside jumpers to go with the drives to the basket, including a particularly nice baseline fadeaway to cut the Grizz lead to five with a minute to go. Meanwhile, he continued to scrap on D--four steals and four blocks--although you'd certainly like to see him get more than six rebounds, especially with Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph gobbling up offensive boards like chicken wings. In any event, it's nice to actually have a starting power forward for a change--hope he sticks around for the whole season this time.
But Thaddeus Young...oh, Thaddeus. I don't know what's going on with our third-year man from G. Tech, whether he's struggling playing out of position in a new offense, whether he's still rusty from a long off-season, or whether he misses having a point guard like Andre Miller feeding him the ball where he likes it, but Thad's game continues to look uglier and uglier. Jordan benched him for much of the second half--perhaps trying to light a fire under him like he apparently sparked under Elton--and it'll be interesting to see how he responds tonight. (Thrilled about all this, by the way, must be sub-forward Rodney Carney, who was on the court for nearly half the game last night and chipped in seven points).
7:30 tip from the Quicken Loans Arena. A win might be a bit too much to ask for, but just staying in the game for all four quarters--something the team couldn't manage against the Magic or Celtics--would be pretty huge. And for the sake of all involved, the team better be crashing the glass like their season depended on it tonight.
Original Story:
http://www.the700level.com/2009/11/do...
