Sixers Break Down in the Motor City, Lose 115-100 to Pistons

By Sean Kennedy

If Sixers management is ever looking for an extra revenue stream for the organization, it could market the team as shooting rejuvenation specialists. Feeling depressed about your recent shooting slump? Poor ball movement got your offense bogged down? Come play the Sixers! The Pistons entered the game as the worst three-point shooting team in the league. So naturally, they hit their first 6 attempts of the game from downtown, propelling them to a 40-point first quarter and a huge double-digit lead that the Sixers could never fight their way back from. 

Whenever Detroit did happen to miss a shot, Andre Drummond was there to clean up the mess. The Pistons center finished with career-highs in points with 31, and rebounds with 18, collecting 6 offensive boards and generally playing like the kid in junior high who was the first to hit puberty among his friends. Drummond consistently beat the Sixers big men down the floor to finish alley-oops from Brandon Jennings, and his condor-like wing span led to 6 steals, as there was plenty of aggressive trapping and full-court pressure from the Pistons.

The only stretch of the game where the Sixers looked anything like the team we watched the first couple weeks of the season was in the third quarter. The Sixers employed the hack-a-shaq strategy on Andre Drummond (more on that below), and as the big man worked on his 7-18 free throw performance, stunting the Detroit offense in the process, Philadelphia ran its way back into the game. On one play, Spencer Hawes corralled a rebound with one hand and baseball-passed the ball down the floor to Evan Turner for a breakaway bucket. On the next possession, Turner pushed it up and found Hollis Thompson for an alley-oop lay-in. Turner scored 13 points in the third quarter alone (finishing with 20 on the game), and the Sixers cut the lead down to a manageable 12 points going into the final frame.

However, the fourth quarter was all Drummond again, as the Pistons center once again laid waste to the smoldering ruins of the Sixers defense. If, as expected, Nerlens Noel falls into the same category as Drummond as far as being a freakishly athletic big man who runs like a deer, I can’t wait to see the Sixers big man take the floor. It looks like it would be a fun experience for the rooting fans at home.

Box Score

Notable Observations:

• Pick-and-roll defense continues to flummox the Sixers. On one Detroit possession, you could hear Brett Brown yelling out ‘red’, which Malik Rose pointed out means they should be switching the screen. But instead, they threw a weak double-team at ball-handler, forcing an extra defensive rotation which yielded a wide open Kentavious Caldwell-Pope corner three (he made it in case you haven’t picked up on the game’s theme).
• Thad Young was the lone Sixer who looked like he had a pulse in the early going. He drained two three-pointers in the first period and picked the pocket of Greg Monroe and pushed ahead for a breakaway finish. Monroe hammered Young to the floor and it looked like Young had hit his head and was a little shaken up. But he shook it off to sink both free throws and went on to finish with a team-high 24 points. Even when the efficiency hasn’t been there, Young continues, as always, to bring the effort each game. Thad is the ultimate team player but you have to wonder how long it will be before all this losing starts to wear on him.
• Usually, I hate the whole intentional foul strategy because it takes away from the flow of the game and it’s boring watching a continuous string of free throws, but a couple interesting things happened with it here. First, one of the times Daniel Orton was fouling Drummond, Brandon Jennings threw up a three-pointer that went in. The referees actually had to review the play to determine if Jennings shot the ball simultaneously with the foul and if the Pistons should get 3 points, plus one free throw for Drummond (fortunately, for the Sixers they ruled the shot took place right after the foul and didn’t count). Then, Drummond was so completely abysmal that it was ruining the Pistons offense; Mo Cheeks had to sit him on the bench despite the fact that he was absolutely dominating every other facet of the game.

Tanking Implications: 

The 6 steals by Michael Carter-Williams are a ridiculous stat, but the rest of his floor game wasn’t very encouraging, especially in regard to taking care of the basketball against pressure. Tony Wroten was a negative presence on the floor, and Hollis Thompson didn’t exactly take the starting job and run with it. The loss continues the Sixers’ recent full-on dive into the depths of tanking, but there wasn’t a whole lot to be encouraged about from the young guys in this contest. 3/5 tanks.