Sixers Invited to a Garden Party

By Sean Kennedy

With the Sixers playing out a really ugly stretch of basketball lately, they’ll travel to hallowed ground at Madison Square Garden to take on one of the few franchises in a worse state of affairs (in regards to current on-court product, the Sixers long-term prospects are still going perfectly according to the Hinkie doctrine). The last time these two teams met, the Knicks easily prevailed behind big nights from Amare Stoudemire and J.R. Smith. That contest was in the middle of a 5-game winning streak that had the media talking about how New York had figured things out and were finally the pseudo-contender playoff team everyone expected them to be. However, as we’ve seen with the Sixers, winning streaks in the middle of the season can just be random and not really indicative of anything, and such has been the case for the Knicks. They’ve since lost 4 straight games and all of the same problems that have dropped them into the lottery are still present.

The Knicks have been the worst defensive team in the league over the past 4 games with an egregious 116.9 defensive rating. Even with Tyson Chandler back out there, New York has too many minus-defenders like Bargnani, J.R. Smith, and Felton soaking up big minutes. They’re letting the opponent get plenty of open looks, while also not forcing any sort of turnovers with a league-worst 9.6% opposing TO ratio. Tonight’s game might be a battle of wills as the Sixers insist on giving the ball away and the Knicks refusing to take it.

The offensive end for New York hasn’t been much better over this 4-game skid as their 43.3% eFG% ranks third-worst in the NBA (just ahead of the Sixers!). Their three-point attack, which they relied upon so heavily last year when things were going well for them, has gone ice-cold dropping to 29.8%. Of course, if the Knicks have gone cold, Philadelphia is sub-zero at just 19.4% over the same stretch so fans might also be in store for an epic amount of bricks tonight. Carmelo has been trying to shoot his team out of the slump, and is actually 38.9% from three the last four games, but just 36% from the floor overall as those contested long twos aren’t falling for him despite his ‘superstar’ status.

Still, if there’s any team for Melo and the rest of his teammates to get healthy against, it’s the Sixers. J.R. Smith appears to be back out of Mike Woodson’s doghouse and we saw a few weeks ago the type of damage he’s capable of against Philadelphia’s laissez-faire approach to perimeter defense. At least the Sixers won’t be abused by the ghost of Amar’e Stoudemire past as the big man is out a couple weeks with an ankle sprain. Hopefully, Michael Carter-Williams will have another big game against the shoddy defense of Raymond Felton and company; the way Philadelphia has played of late, those are the types of victories Sixers fans have to look forward to these days.