Sixers Keep Pace But Fall Short Against Indiana

By Sean Kennedy

Indiana 101, Philadelphia 94

Box Score

Although the Pacers may have arrived in Philadelphia in a bit of a slump, having lost 4 of their past games, no one in their right mind would have given the Sixers any chance against one of the two prohibitive favorites in the Eastern Conference. However, with Evan Turner and Lavoy Allen back in town with Indiana, the Sixers hearkened back to earlier this season and defied convention with a gutsy performance. After the Pacers jumped out to a 9-0 lead to start the game, the Sixers basically played them even the rest of the way. Philadelphia even cut the lead to three in the closing minutes, but a George Hill three-pointer with minute and a half remaining extended the Pacers’ lead to 8 and served as the dagger to any comeback hopes.

The Sixers moved the ball around offensively as well as they have all season, and only turned the ball over 10 times, which is a total they’ve matched in a single quarter on occasions this season. The team’s sharing ways were perhaps best exemplified by the career-high 10 assists from Thad Young. Young also led the team with 25 points, but took a career-high 31 shots to get there, as the Sixers de-facto leading scorer couldn’t get an outside shot to drop despite doing everything else well on the night.

The surprise of the night was the positive play from recent Sixers acquisition Byron Mullens. Mullens had a huge first half, shooting 5-5 from the floor for 12 points, before eventually finishing with 15 on the game. However, not only was he hitting a few outside shots, Mullens was hustlling back on defense, calling out rotations, and even had a nice roll to the hoop off a pick-and-roll with Michael Carter-Williams. It was far and away the best I’ve ever seen him play; one can hope some of Brett Brown’s instruction is getting through to Mullens, who is still just 25 years of age.

Still, the Sixers couldn’t buy a bucket for long stretches (shooting below 40% on the night), and the Pacers are too good a team to shoot that poorly and come away with a win, no matter how well you may play in other facets of the game. Paul George caught fire in the third quarter to help the Pacers earn a bit of breathing room, dropping 13 points in the frame on his way to a game-high-tying 25 points. There’s a reason many pundits were denoting him as league MVP (non-Lebron-Durant division) when he was off to his hot start at the beginning of the season, and there’s no shame in falling short to the likes of George and the rest of the Pacers. As Malik Rose said at the end of the game, if the Sixers play similar ball against some of the lesser teams in the league, they’ll certainly come away with a few victories. So despite the 19th straight loss, this game at least provided some hope for beleaguered Sixers fans out there. Lord knows they need some.

Notable Observations:

• The Sixers had a short video tribute for Evan Turner and Lavoy Allen during one of the timeouts in the first quarter. Not sure exactly what they may have covered with it: Lavoy battling KG in the Boston series, the series win against a Derrick Rose-less Bulls team, the couple game-winners Turner had. Maybe it was just the YouTube video of Evan Turner cursing into the mic when he didn’t realize it was on. Either way, not a whole lot of cherished memories with those guys to fill up a montage.
• There was a strange moment in the second half when the bottom sole of Tony Wroten’s sneaker tore off as he was driving to the hoop. It just goes to show that Wroten attacks the rim with such a ferocity that his shoes can’t even hold it together.
• In off the court news, Arnett Moultrie was sent to the D-league, presumably to help get his conditioning where Brett Brown wants it to be. The Sixers are basically signing guys off the street to play significant minutes for them and the former first-round pick can’t even crack the rotation for the team. The kicker is that Philadelphia still owes Miami a couple draft picks for him; poor job, old Sixers management.

Tanking Implications:

This performance was one of the Sixers’ better ones on the season; they likely would have beat a lot of the teams in the league with the effort they put forth against the Pacers. No young guy really had an eye-popping performance but everyone chipped in and it’s good for them to play some meaningful crunch-time minutes against a high-caliber team like Indiana. Plus, as fun as a win would have been, they still stayed just 2 games ahead of Milwaukee in the standings which is more important in the big picture. 5/5 tanks.