Heard in the Cheap Seats

Beat the teams you are supposed to beat and find a way to win a few against those people expect you to lose.  That’s the blueprint every team draws up when the season starts.  In November, the Sixers had a hard team beating anyone and would almost certainly have found a way to squander yesterday’s game against the Washington Wizards.

After jumping out to an early 15-point lead, the second unit seemed disinterested and intent on allowing the Wizards to get back into the game.  To make matters worse, Samuel Dalembert went down with an ankle injury at the close of the 1^st half.  All signs were pointing to the letdown Philadelphia fans know all too well.  

For the majority of the second half not much changed.  As a fan watching this game, you would be forgiven for being lulled to sleep.  There just wasn’t much to watch.  Fortunately, the Sixers were able to close out the game strong and avoid that dreaded letdown.  It certainly wasn’t pretty by any means but they did what they needed to do to pull out the victory.  Interestingly, Dalembert’s replacement at the center position in the second half was Elton Brand.  Brand responded by playing spirited basketball—blocking shots with ferocity.  Tony DiLeo indicated after the game that Brand will serve as Dalembert’s replacement moving forward.  For the time being, this will delay the lingering question of what lineup to use when Brand returns to his starting position.  Although Brand is undersized for the center spot, he is a very solid post defender and capable of providing weak-side help.  Dalembert was playing good ball in the last few games, so this loss hurts, but it will be a good experiment as well in getting Brand and Speights the minutes we’ve been craving.

The game was ugly but the Sixers found a way to win.  They outshot their opponent from beyond the arc, shot for a high field-goal percentage and were able to play solid team defense.  Not surprisingly, the Sixers were terrible from the free throw line with an 11-20 performance.  As has been said here many times, a team that shoots from the line the way they do will have a hard time winning when the games grind to a near halt and the physicality increases.  Unfortunately, like three-point shooting, free-throw percentage is not something that changes over night.

For now, the Sixers finally got over the hump and stand at one game above .500.  With a win tonight against the New Jersey Nets they would give themselves a little breathing room.