The Sixers welcomed the Toronto Raptors to the Wachovia center tonight for an afternoon matchup. Toronto came into the afternoon clinging to the 8th seed in the Eastern conference, so they desperately needed a win to move closer to clinching themselves a playoff berth. Fresh off an embarrassing loss to Ok City Thunder Sixers didn't figure to fair any better in this one. All the signs pointed to another lopsided Sixers's loss. However, the Sixers actually came to play in this one for a change and while Toronto did eventually get the win, they had to earn it. For 4 quarters the Sixers matched them shot for shot as Andre Iguodala put 33 and 11 assists, and Jrue Holiday pumped in 25 and 7 assists, to almost lead the Sixers to the upset. The Sixers actually trailed by 13 heading into the 4th quarter, but a furious Sixer rally early in the quarter, allowed them to cut the lead to singe digits, before knotting up at 111 with a little under 2 minutes to play.
From there Holiday and the Raptors traded threes to send the game into overtime tied at 114. In OT the Sixers continued to match Toronto shot for shot until the Raptors pulled ahead with under a minute to play. A few Sixer misses and mistakes later and Toronto had prevailed 128 - 123, not really a surprise at all. Once again the Sixer's defense didn't show up in this one, allowing Toronto to shoot 56% from the field with 11 three pointers. That just isn't going to get it done against the Raptors. Still, it was fun to watch and nice to see the Sixers actually exhibiting some effort. You just wonder why Iggy doesn't score like he did today in every game and whether Jrue Holiday can cosistently become the kind of scorer he was tonight. In the meantime, with the loss the Sixers drop to 24-60 overall, still 12th in the Eastern conference.
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