The Sixers have truly been playing very well as of late and tonight with Knicks in town they finally had the opportunity to the reap the rewards of their good play and move ever closer to the 6th spot in the Eastern conference. As you might expect between two potential playoff teams it was a tight well played affair. In the end it was the defense of the Sixers and the lack thereof of the Knicks that proved the difference. The Sixers held the Knicks , who love the three ball, to just 29% from beyond and 40% from the field. They also did a good job holding Amare Stoudamire in check with just 21 and 7 rebounds, on 7 of 19 shooting. Meanwhile Elton Brand led the way offensively, with a season high 33 and 16 rebounds, while Andre Iguodala posted an amazing 18 and 16 assists, Jodie Meeks drilled 4 treys and wound up with 14, and Thad Young chipped in with 10 points in important minutes off the bench.
The First quarter was all Sixers as they rolled to a 14 point lead. New York struck back in the 2nd quarter and rallied all the way back to take a 1 point lead into the half. The Sixers rebounded a little bit in the 3rd quarter but still found themselves down 9 heading into the 4th. The 4th quarter was just about all Sixers. They held New York to just 16 points and erased the 9 point lead completely. In fact they actually led by 10 with 3 minutes to play. Then uh oh New York finally heated up from beyond and the Sixers started misfiring and before you knew it the Knicks had the ball down 2 with 14 seconds left. Fortunately the Sixer defense came through again as Thad Young ran Shawnee Williams off the 3 point line and then helped to stuff his attempt at a layup as time expired, to preserve a big 100-98 win. With the win the Sixers move to 23-26 overall and just 2 games behind the Knicks for 6th in the East.
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