NBA 2K12 Season: 76ers vs Rockets
By Dante Nelson
Let’s start from the last minute of the game. The Sixers are down by 1.
- 0:56 Louis Scola gets a layup to give Rockets 3 point lead
- 0:7.9 Jrue Holiday hits jumper to bring Sixers within 1 again
- 0:4.5 Kyle Lowry hits two free-throws for a Rockets 3 point lead
- 0:00 Andre Iguodala hits an insane 3 pointer as the buzzer expires!
But…Sixers lost 112-104 in OT. And it wasn’t even competitive either in those final 5 minutes. The Sixers (Andre) started out the OT with 3 straight bad possessions: Bad shot, turnover, and then another bad shot. And the Rockets scored after each of those bad possessions. Kevin Martin had…wait for it…42 points. Yeah. He shot 7-15 from the perimeter. Yeah, I know. Oh and he only had 6 rebounds and 3 assists and a steal with no turnovers.
So…who kept the Sixers in it against those numbers from Martin? Hard to say since nobody scored more than 20 points for the Sixers. 4 of them had at least 15 points though. Holiday hit some big shots in the last few minutes of the 4th quarter.
The Jruth ended up with a double-double of 15 points and 10 assists with 5 rebounds. He’s been stuffing the stat sheet in the first 4 games of the season. Iguodala lead the Sixers with 19 points, Marreese Speights had 18, Thaddeus Young added 17 with 11 rebounds, and Elton Brand had 13 points.
Sixers are now 2-2 for the season. Both losses at home. Both wins on the road. You have to take advantage of home-court.
But the game was very frustrating. Sixers had some control early on with a 9 point lead. They lost it almost as soon as they got it. But that wasn’t the annoying part. Nope. It was the 2nd quarter through the end of regulation. The Rockets went up by as much as 12. The Sixers made a comeback. Rockets answered with a run. Sixers made a run to get back in the game. Rockets responded with another run. Can you see the pattern here? Every time the Sixers made it a game; the Rockets pushed them away. This happened from the 2nd quarter through the 4th. Up and down and up and down. Sixers never lead during this time span, but boy did they tie the game on several occasions. It was like playing a game and getting to the final level but then you die and because you forgot to save your game, you have to start the whole game over. Kinda.
Sixers actually shot better in FG and 3FG for the game. Oops but wait…Sixers made only 5 3-pointers vs the Rockets 14. That’s a 27 point difference. You can’t get outscored like that and expect to win easily, especially when you made less free throws too (16 for Rockets, 9 for Sixers). Still, the Sixers could have won this game. Inexcusable for Martin to have that kind of game against this defense.
Here are the leaders of stats for the Sixers for the season so far:
PPG: Marreese Speights 16.8
RPG: Thaddeus Young 9
Okay remember people…it’s a video game! Back to the stats:
APG: Jrue Holiday 9
SPG: Marreese Speights 0.7
BPG: Elton Brand 1.7
TOPG: Andre Iguodala 2.8
FG%: Marreese Speights 62
3P%: Okay just calm down everybody…Spencer Hawes AND Evan Turner…both at 100%. I said calm down. But both only took one 3-pointer. Let’s just give the award to Lou Williams. He’s shooting 71% from the arc.
FT%: Marreese Speights and Spencer Hawes at 100.
Sixers face the 4-1 Bucks next. Need to win here. I finally caught myself up. Friday is the day they are suppose to play the Bucks. After that, I’ll be posting when a game is scheduled.