Sixers Unable to Tame Wolves in 125-102 Defeat

By Sean Kennedy

With the conventional wisdom being that the Sixers are trying to lose as many games as possible this season, the preseason finale served as the perfect precursor, as Philadelphia was greatly outplayed by the visiting Timberwolves throughout the contest. Continuing a troubling preseason trend, the Sixers allowed their opponent far too many open looks from beyond the arc, and Minnesota took advantage by hitting 15 of their 29 three point attempts. Kevin Love, showing no signs of last season’s myriad of injuries that limited him to just 18 games, hit 4 threes himself en route to 19 points while sitting the entire second half. For Philadelphia, James Anderson was the lone bright spot offensively, draining 4-8 threes and leaking out for easy fast break points on his way to a game-high 23 points.

Box Score

Notable Observations: 

• As mentioned above, the three-point defense is simply unacceptable at this point. The Timberwolves weren’t running any fancy sets to free themselves for open looks; Sixers defenders were simply losing their man off of simple pick-and-rolls or dribble handoffs. Hopefully, the roster is still in the process of learning Brett Brown’s defensive system and this is not a season-long problem.
• One area the Sixers performed well in was running the floor for quick points in transition, especially in the first half when they accrued 20 fast break points (they finished with 30). One sequence in the first quarter saw James Anderson challenge a Kevin Martin 3 and immediately leak out. Evan Turner corralled the long rebound and, without taking a dribble, threw it the length of the court to Anderson for an easy lay-in. Without a deep roster of scorers, Philadelphia will need to rely on these type of buckets more than your average team.
• It was an up-and-down evening for Thad Young, who struggled to stay with Kevin Love defensively and also missed a number of bunnies around the basket that he normally converts. However, in true Thad Young fashion, he never stopped working, perfectly illustrated by one sequence in the third quarter where he blocked a shot and ran the floor to follow a Tony Wroten miss on the other end.
• Royce White continued to be as enigmatic on the court as he is off it. He displayed his dazzling potential during one play where he eluded Alexey Shved in traffic on the fast break and finished with a slam. However, he also has a habit of getting completely lost defensively and still does not look to be in game shape.
• In regard to roster battles, Daniel Orton was once again the first big off the bench and looks to be locked in to a bench role. His offensive game is extremely limited but he’s a big body who battles on the glass and can challenge shots down low (attributes in short supply on this Sixers team). There appear to be two roster spots to go between Rodney Williams or Hollis Thompson and Vander Blue or Khalif Wyatt. Williams and Blue are the better raw athletes, while Thompson and Wyatt are the better shooters; none of these guys have really made a case with their play that they absolutely need to be on this team.
• Malik Rose and Marc Zumoff discussed how Rose is currently locked out of his twitter account due to his associated e-mail address being dropped. Hearing those two talk about that problem reminded me of my first official ‘I’m getting old’ moment which happened at Busch Gardens this past weekend. A teenager in line behind us asked me to take a picture of her and her friends. She handed me her phone and I didn’t really know what to do as she said ‘oh, it’s still on Snapchat’. Now, I know what Snapchat is conceptually, but had never seen it before and was pretty bummed out at how confused I was initially by the app. Anyway, I could relate to Malik.

Tanking Implications: Pretty dispiriting effort from the Sixers overall as the team still looks lost on the defensive end. While losing serves the organization best long-term, it would be encouraging to see the young guys start to grasp the defensive scheme. Also, aside from James Anderson, who is practically a veteran at 24, none of the young guys really stepped up with a quality performance. 3/5 tanks.