Monday, November 12, 2007

While I was otherwise occupied...

Apparently, the Sixers continue to play games even when I'm otherwise occupied. Who knew? My visiting polar bear has returned to warmer climes (only in Alaska can I describe Boston as a warmer locale...), so I'm catching up on the Sixers action from the last couple of days.

Two games to quickly comment on today, and then tomorrow I'll take a look at trends from the Sixers first five games.

On November 9, the Sixers dropped a game 103-105 to the Raptors. That makes two losses to the Raptors in the first five games of the season (dropping the Sixers to 2-3). Clearly, the Raptors are better than the Sixers at this stage of the season. Not a surprise since I expected the Raptors to be better, but I think we now have our proof. Reggie Evans had 12 rebounds in 22 minutes and Samuel Dalembert had 6 rebounds in 19 minutes, but I can't get mad at Mo Cheeks for not playing them more-- Chris Bosh went to the foul line 18 times, getting both big men in foul trouble (Evans had 4 fouls and Dalembert had 5 fouls). The Sixers will obviously need to do better in that department if they're going to have success this season. At least the Sixers did better this time than in the first game against the Raptors, so its a start.

On November 11, the Sixers got absolutely blown out by the Hornets (92-73). Shooting made the difference in this one-- the Sixers had a true shooting percentage of 44% while the Hornets had a TS% of 54%. So far, the Hornets look very good this season (as their 5-2 record demonstrates). Hopefully this result was just a one game blip since the Sixers have hung tough in all their previous games, but it did leave the Sixers with a very disappointing 1-3 record on their homestand. Ugh.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Using the NBA.com charts there are some statistics that point to the Sixers being a mediocre, as opposed to a bad, team. Checking the offensive tab on Tuesday 11/13 they are 23rd in the league in points-per game. If there were 40 teams in the league that wouldn't bother me too much... but there are only 30. So it's problem. However, re-sorting to point-differential you see the Sixers are actually better than more than 50% of the teams in terms of keeping the score close. However, using assists as a barometer to judge how well the team plays offense as a unit, the Sixers drop all the way to 24th. On balance the Sixers offense needs a lot of work.

Defensively there is more good news. As a team they have collected the 7th most total rebounds and the 8th most blocks. I'm happy with those numbers. If they can keep them up all season then their record will almost certainly improve.

One of the catogories that bridges the offense/defense divide also gives me a little hope. Even though the Sixers are not getting many steals, they're 23rd in the league, they must be protecting the ball well because they are 12th in steal differential.