76ers

Sixers are doing well during their toughest stretch so far this season. Wizards are starting to convince me that they are a basketball fail. Hawks look like that Horford injury is catching up to them. Nets are somewhat decent. Pistons win at home and lose on the road. Clippers beat some good teams and lose to other good teams. Also, a semi-rant about Blake Griffin and Lob City (you know you want to read that!) Let’s see just where each team started up. And yeah, I’m ready for some football! If only for the commercials. Jump with me!

The Sixers came into the season with two perceived advantages: depth and continuity. One of those was completely on target, the other a little bit iffy. Let me explain: going into the season, we knew the Sixers had a roster of nine guys who were decent or better NBA players. Beyond that, the roster was a barren wasteland of veteran ‘savvy” and the “potential” of youth. We had no idea how Nikola Vucevic would play. I thought Lavoy Allen would be cut from the roster. We knew Tony Battie and Andres Nocioni stunk, and we knew Craig Brackins should have [...]

The first six minutes of last night’s eventual rout were wildly entertaining, if only for the fast-paced style that Sixer fans of roughly three years ago were accustomed to. The Sixers and Heat romped up and down the court for 6 minutes to start, with high energy to go around. Yet, as pointed out yesterday before the game by Jared Dubin over at Hardwood Paroxysm, the Sixers don’t play at a high pace. They’re 22nd in the league in pace: they grind down their opponents on both ends of the floor, whether it’s through slowing down the opponent’s fast breaks [...]

There is no question that the Sixers start has been a pleasant surprise. People in Philadelphia have started to take notice, and the once near empty Wells Fargo Center is now a very full arena. However, the 15-6 record that the Sixers brought into play Wednesday versus Chicago came with a caveat: they had played a phenomenally easy schedule, and hadn’t beaten a truly elite team. That all changed in front of 18,325 fans who came out to support the start. The Bulls were bringing in the conference’s best record, and sported reigning MVP Derrick Rose at point guard. They [...]

Player Efficiency Rating (PER) is one of the more highly celebrated advanced offensive stats, and while it’s not perfect it’s a decent snapshot of a player’s game. 15 is league-average. Above is good, below is bad. Meanwhile, off of the backs of weak opposition, the Sixers have a ton of guys above the cutoff: according to basketball-reference.com, only Jodie Meeks and Tony Battie fall under the 15 mark amongst rotation players. Lou Williams leads with a 22.5 rating, which I hope to talk a little about soon (but I’ve been bad with time commitments recently, so please don’t hold me [...]

How exciting! Sixers have been beating teams with relative ease. Most of the teams they have faced are not good. While the wins may not seem as valuable as beating good teams, last season’s Sixers would be barely beating them. This season sees the Sixers doing what great teams are suppose to do; win games that they are “suppose” to win, at least by paper stats. Still, there are skeptics (including me) that are waiting until they face and beat good and great teams before saying the Sixers are for real. Well the next 7 games should be a great [...]

The rankings are after the jump. Not much of an intro this time so… Oh well actually, there is a new member of the top 3 teams.

1. Containing Deron Williams Deron Williams is undoubtedly New Jersey’s best player, but so far this year he’s been hot and cold. When he plays well, his team has a chance to win. When he doesn’t? They’re toast. So keeping Williams from doing a ton of damage should and will be priority number one for the Sixers. Jrue Holiday doesn’t give up a quickness advantage on Williams and should be okay defending him on his own. And the Sixers will give some help: other than Anthony Morrow and maybe Shawne Williams, the Nets have no one who can really burn [...]

From Dei Lynam: In an effort to help the players avoid mental fatigue during this 66-game sprint, the Sixers’ strength and conditioning coach Jesse Wright and trainer Kevin Johnson suggested to Collins the players do yoga on their rare practice days. The change in training has been a hit. “We have aired on the side of rest, just trying to keep our guys as mentally fresh as possible,” Collins said. “As a result we have had a lot of slippage in what we would like to do offensively, but I think we have the better chance to win, rather than [...]

The Sixers did not play poorly for about 44 minutes of game action against the Heat. I would surmise they played quite well, considering they had no legitimate center for most of  the second half. I mentioned on twitter last night that the Sixers did not lose because of LeBron James. Sure, he had a great final line (28-6-5 with awesome shooting percentages), but the Sixers could have won if they kept everyone else in check. They failed in that endeavor. Chris Bosh had a great offensive game. Joel Anthony seemingly wore pogo sticks. The supporting cast hit nearly all [...]