SIXERS NEWS

The Sixers finished their west coast trip tonight in L.A against Kobe and the Lakers. It had been an up and down trip for the Sixers coming in and if the pattern held they would be up for this one. Indeed they were up for this one and gave the Lakers all they could handle. However, despite the usual lack of effort from the L.A, their overwhelming talent advantage won out on this night. Still it was a commendable effort by the Sixers, especially considering they were only 9 strong(usually a team at least 12 active players) against arguably the NBA's best team . They could have easily rolled over but instead they fought hard all night long and it almost payed off. They actually led by 1 at the half and were still within 5 heading into the 4th quarter. In the 4th it seemed perhaps that the lack of fresh bodies off the bench finally got to them as they tired just bit. Still, they refused to let L.A get away from them, but simply did not have enough left to mount any sort of comeback, eventually succumbing by 9, 99-90.

No one was more up for the Sixers on the night than Sammy Dalembert, who put forth arguably his best perfomance of the season thus far, with 24 and 11 rebounds. Lou Williams added a solid 16 and 7 assists and Andre Iguodala and Thad Young each chipped in with 13. So it was a total team effort. Well, except for Elton Brand who had an especially awful night. While they didn't put forth a whole lot of effort, the Lakers did at least make an effort to keep Brand in check, and that's probably what one them the game. Brand put just up 2 points and 4 rebounds, about half his normal output, and not at all what the Sixers needed out of him to get the win. If he had only compiled his usual 10 points and 10 rebounds, the Sixers would at least been with L.A at the end, but it just wasn't his night. Against the taller Lakers he just couldn't find the space he needed to get off his trademark mid range jumper or get inside to pull down rebounds.

All in all despite the loss, I am still proud of the way my Sixers fought tonight. I think they put up a much stronger effort than most teams would have in their position and that's commendable at least. With the loss the Sixers drop to 23-36 overall, still good enough for 10th in the East, but well off the pace now for 8th now, at a full 7 games back. It is going to take a lot for them to dig out of that hole and into the playoffs.