The Sixers welcomed Dwight "Superman" Howard and the Orlando Magic to the Wachovia center tonight, as they looked to, oh who am I kidding, continue throwing away the rest of their season. In a game pitting two teams heading in opposite directions you wouldn't expect it to be much of a contest. As they have done all season against the NBA's best, the Sixers brought out close to their best in this one, and incredibly managed to hang in there for 3 quarters. They trailed by only 4 after the 1st quarter, 9 at the half, and just 10 heading into the 4th quarter. There Orlando finally pulled away for an easy 16 point, 109-93 win. As usual it was the 3 pointer that killed the Sixers in this one. Orlando shot 51% from beyond the arc and drilled 16 of them, plus Howard was dominant inside with 23 and 15 rebounds, basically everything you don't want to see happen when you're playing the magic. Moreover, the Sixers again failed to attack the basket, not they could have with Howard standing in the middle anyway, and instead attempted to out magic the magic, pounding it inside to Elton Brand and Sammy Dalembert either for an easy basket or a kick out for an open three.
It almost worked as Eddie Jordan was finally smart enough to bring his best 3 point shooter, Jason Kapono, off the bench. In fact Kapono started at small forward for the first time all season, and hit two treys, as the Sixers shot a respectable 42% from the beyond the arc, with 6 treys all together. In the end though, they simply didn't have the firepower to stay with the Magic. They also really didn't make much of an effort to stop the Magic, who as mentioned shot 51% from beyond the arc, and 52% from the field and even 70% from the free throw line, with 30 attempts. Basically Orlando got to do whatever it wanted on offense tonight. The Sixers for their part got impressive performances out of Sammy with 16 and 14 rebounds, Andre Iguodala with 23 , 6 rebounds, and 6 assists, and Brand with 23, but none of it was ever going to be enough to knock off the Magic tonight and I am not sure they really wanted to win anyway. With the loss they drop to 24-47 overall now, still good enough for 12th in the East, but now 12 games out of 8th.
2 comments:
I have nothing more to say about the Sixers. Now wether that is a bad thing or not I dont know.
-to ph1llysports
well I don't know either, but maybe you shutting about them will build some kind cosmic energy to push the Sixers to the win, or not. Seriously I wouldn't worry too much about them this point. All we can do now is look forward to the draft and hope they get a good one
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