SIXERS NEWS

The Sixers opened their regular season tonight against the Miami Heat, in front of an unusually large Wells Fargo center crowd. Of course the crowd tends to be larger when you've got Dwayne Wade, Lebron James, and Chris Bosh all in the building at the same time. Still the Heat and their Dynamic trio actually came in at 0-1 on the season after a sloppy loss to the Boston Celtics and they continued their sloppy play tonight, mostly to the delight of the crowd. Unfortunately the Sixer's couldn't quite take advantage of Miami's sloppiness, to steal a win, but they played hard and were at least able to keep it close.

They actually did a decent job defensively, against the big 3 with only Wade managing to break out with a 30 point night. The continue to lack even solid perimeter defense though, and that's what killed them tonight. James Jones alone, was 6 of 9 from beyond the arc, for 20 points off the bench. As a team Miami shot 50% from beyond with 8 treys which is just too much. You just can't allow that kind of success from beyond all the time and expect win consistenly. They couldn't get around it last year and they won't this year. So at point Doug Collins will have to figure out how to improve their game on that side of the floor.

For now though, he take some consolidation in the improvements he's made on the offensive side of the things. Evan Turner, who struggled all summer and started the night on the bench, was actually the Sixers leading scorer on the night, with 16. He also added 7 rebounds and was overall very encouraging to watch. Elton Brand actually looked somewhat like his oldself for a change with 12 and 9 rebounds. Aside from Brand, Andre Iguodala, with 10 was the only other Sixer starter to reach double figures, so Collins made need to shuffle the lineup a little.

That's especially considering how well the bench performed. Besides Turner, Thad Young and Lou Williams each chipped in with 15 and Andres Nocioni dropped 10, with 2 treys. Whether one of those guys gets moved into the starting lineup are not, its looks as though the bench will be a strength for the Sixers this year. That's nice considering it had been a weakness for some time.

In early going the Sixers really came out to play in this one and actually had a couple brief leads.
They really stood two to two with the Heat in the first half and only trailed by 8 at the half. Things got away from the Sixers a bit in the 3rd quarter as turnovers creeped in for them. Miami took advantage as they pulled away to a 26 point lead through 3 quarters. Surprisingly, rather than go away, it was the Sixers who really took command in the 4th quarter, outscoring Miami 33-17. Sadly it was just a bit too little too late as Miami thrice held off the Sixers for their first win 97-87.

While it is encouraging that the Sixers were able to keep it to a 10 point game, it's also important to remember that they a lot of good teams close last season as well, only to not show up against bad teams and get spanked. So it will be a little while before we know if this team is really anything more than the same mess it was last season. Here's hoping it is.