| 31 March 2010
Sixers smartly stopped their winning streak at a modest two (26-48, .351), allowing the surging Thunder a pretty confortable 93-111 road win.
Nothing to complain here: we played hard enough (?), we stayed in the game long enough (?) to eventually fall in the fourth...
Other teams are tanking more blatantly, Sixers' way should look acceptable.
But, hey, if I look at the two rosters, there is no way I could see a 19-win differential at this point of the year.
Thunder are seventeen games above .500 in the tough Western Conference, while we are twenty-two below the same mark in the weak Eastern.
Before you praise Durant and his greatness, please remember this team is starting Thabo Sefolosha at SG and Nenad Krstic (brought back from Europe at mid season...) at C.
That's basically a masterpiece of superb coaching vs a masterpiece of idiotic personnel management.
So let's take our hat off to former Sixer bum player Scott Brooks, who is a strong candidate for COY: I'd put only Skiles ahead of him.
THREE ANSWERS
1) No, with Dalembert out, there is nobody who can secure the boards for us. Thunder got fourteen offensive rebounds (!), vs Sixers' six... for sure it won't be Brand (a pathetic 6 in 40 minutes of action), nor Jason Smith (zero in 11 minutes...).
Speights is slowly improving in boxing out and getting more physical, but the truth is that Sam on the bench means leaving a big hole in the middle. That's a HUGE problem that has to be addressed thinking after 2011.
2) Yes, the Kevin Ollie you saw at the end of the game is OUR Kevin Ollie. Funny how Mark Zumoff said Ollie is thirty-six while dude (?) will turn THIRTY-EIGHT in December, since he was born in 1972... (more after the jump).3) No, this Ibaka guy looks not bad at all. Just when I took note on my paper of something like "Thunder would need a Dalembert-type of center" the rookie had 3-4 strong moves in the paint, pretty promising. Still, with a bigger presence there, Oklahoma City could perhaps make a deeper run in the playoffs.
THREE QUESTIONS
1) What did happen since Iguodala decided to cut threes & jumpers? 18/24 (75%) in the last two.... Andre is averaging 23 + 8.5 + 8.5 in the last two (!!), with the 5.5 turnovers as only bad stat.
Of course two games at the end of the season don't mean crap, but I like how he is taking it to the rim more instead of settling for jumpers. Now even the (reduced) threes are falling, 4/6 in the last two...
2) What does twenty-one free throws allowed tell you? That Sixers' defense in the first half was atrocious - and that Oklahoma City was being aggressive, ok, ok....
3) What's with Krstic's "hair"? I think I never saw anythying so horrible in a guy that has yet to turn twenty-seven... how about a shave?
REASONS
Why we lost the game
According to Eddie Jordan "we just didn't make enough plays"... while... "they made plays".
It doesn't happen often to agree with our coach, so I'm happy to underline that this time I concur with his in-depth analysis.
To be optimistic
We will be "tired" and shorthanded enough to lose the upcoming Charlotte game without any particular concern.
To be worried
Other teams are tanking so hard that they scare me.
Detroit is out of the picture at this point, our real competitors left are just Indiana, New York, Clippers & (perhaps) Sacramento.
