On the night his older brother Justin joined the team, Jrue Holiday showed big bro exactly how not to succeed at the NBA level. The young guard from UCLA played easily the worst game of his career, shooting a laughably bad 2-24 from the floor. Despite the abysmal shooting performance from their all-star, Philadelphia still found themselves down one with 30 seconds left. Then, in typical Sixers fashion, Evan Turner’s in-bounds pass was deflected by Gerald Henderson and taken the length of the floor for a breakaway dunk. On the subsequent possession, Holiday missed yet another runner and the Bobcats earned their first victory of the season against the Sixers, 88-83.
Philadelphia came out of the gates with much more energy than the Bobcats, recording 7 offensive rebounds in the first quarter alone, including three put-back slams. As he has often lately, Damien Wilkins got out to a hot start, scoring 10 points and collecting four rebounds in the quarter. Gerald Henderson kept the Bobcats reasonably close, making his first three shots and ending the first quarter with 8 points.
After the Sixers got out to an 8-0 run to start second quarter and build a 16 point lead, the wheels came off a bit. The team was very sloppy with the ball, finishing the half with 11 turnovers; Kemba Walker especially took advantage as he accrued 4 steals. Philadelphia also went almost five minutes without making a field before an Evan Turner jumper with two seconds left before halftime.
Things continued to unravel for Philadelphia in the third quarter; Charlotte went ahead 55-53 to take their first lead since 2-0. As Charlotte continued to build its lead, the Sixers team could not buy a bucket. Damien Wilkins was the only Sixers to score in the quarter until there were four and a half minutes remaining. Kemba Walker turned things up on the offensive end for the Bobcats, hitting two threes in the quarter and doing a great job getting into the paint and kicking to open teammates.
With Holiday shooting 1-12 in the fourth quarter alone, a couple nice efforts from his teammates went to waste. Damien Wilkins narrowly missed a double-double with 20 points and a season-high 9 rebounds. Coming off the bench, Dorell Wright scored 14 points in just 19 minutes, hitting 4 big threes in just 7 attempts from behind the arc.
The Sixers were burned time and again by the Bobcats’ backcourt duo of Kemba Walker and Gerald Henderson. Henderson scored a game-high 24 points on 10-18 shooting, hitting a number of timely jumpers down the stretch. Following his third quarter surge, Walker ended up with a double-double of 17 points and 10 assists. Josh McRoberts recorded 12 points to go along with a career-high 16 rebounds, many of them off Holiday misses.
Justin Holiday made his debut with two minutes left in the first quarter. The older Holiday brother immediately missed two shots and committed a foul as he looked a little overeager to make a good first impression at the NBA level. The Holiday siblings became the first pair of brothers to play in the same game for the Sixers. They also became the first pair of brothers to shoot 3-29 combined. Philadelphia will travel to Atlanta to take on the Hawks Friday night.
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