By Sean Kennedy (@PhillyFastBreak)
It may be Halloween weekend, but Friday night’s game was certainly no treat for Sixers fans. Even though the team lost the season opener in Boston, there was a certain degree of optimism following that contest based on the promising play from the young frontcourt of Jahlil Okafor and Nerlens Noel. Against the Jazz however, the only thing promising as a fan was the low amount of traffic exiting the Center if you were one of the few to stay through the final whistle.
Okafor may have had a historic NBA debut against the Celtics, but the degree of difficulty rose sharply in his second professional game. As it turns out, going from having Tyler Zeller and David Lee defending you, to Rudy Gobert and Derrick Favors, is akin to thinking you can switch to All-Madden because you had a good first game against the computer on Rookie. Okafor and Noel combined to shoot just 6-24 from the field, with Gobert rejecting 6 blocks on the game and frustrating Nerlens into missing his first 6 shots of the game.
Sadly, it wasn’t even that it was a particularly good game from Utah. Derrick Favors led the way with 20 points, but needed 17 shots to get there, and Gordon Hayward was quiet with just 12 points on 3-12 shooting. Really, the Sixers were just largely lifeless on the night. Twice in the game, they let the Jazz rip off 13-0 runs, the second of which was to start the second half and put Utah in front 63-33. That’s right, the Sixers were on the scoring pace of a low-enrollment high school squad for most of this contest.
One of the very few bright spots on the night for Philadelphia was the Sixers debut of Nik Stauskas, who tied for a team-high 12 points on 3-6 shooting (2-3 from three). Stauskas drained a three on his very first touch upon entering the game midway though the first quarter. The triple elicited a call of ‘Sauce Castillo’ from PA announcer Matt Cord; between that and the pregame clip of Stauskas pouring hot sauce on a basketball, it’s practically impossible for the fanbase to not already be in love with the former Wolverine. He also was the one to end the scoring drought to start the second half to which I’ll be forever grateful.
Things don't look good for the #Sixers Ten of their next 12 games are against playoff teams.
— Keith Pompey (@PompeyOnSixers) October 31, 2015
As Keith Pompey points out, it’s only going to get tougher from here for Philadelphia in the foreseeable future. Until some of the injured players start filing their way back into the lineup, Sixers fans may continue to be in for a truly frightful experience.
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