Sixers Lay Egg in 1st Game of Colangelo Era

By Sean Kennedy (@PhillyFastBreak)

San Antonio 119, Philadelphia 68 – Box Score

The Philadelphia 76ers community was abuzz with Monday afternoon’s news that Jerry Coangelo, current chairman of USA Basketball, would assume the role as the team’s new chairman of basketball operations. After sitting courtside at the Center Monday night and getting a good, long look at his new club, Colangelo may be looking for an out clause in his freshly inked contract.

San Antonio entered play sitting out both Tim Duncan and Kawhi Leonard, and Manu Ginobili dressed but was an eventual DNP-CD. Fortunately for the Spurs, they have plenty of other all-star caliber players ready to pick up the slack. Two of those, LaMarcus Aldridge and Tony Parker, were instrumental in a 21-4 San Antonio run that was but a precursor for the carnage that would follow.

Aldridge finished with 26 points, the most he’s recorded since joining the Spurs. On the surface, that’s not too surprising. More surprising is that the former Blazer dropped that many points in just 22 minutes of action, playing a few minutes of the third quarter before taking a seat for the rest of the night. Meanwhile, Parker didn’t even take the court in the second half, as Gregg Popovich felt bad for his former protege Brett Brown and with his Spurs holding a 36-point halftime lead. The French star had 12 points and 6 assists in just 16 minutes of action.

For the Sixers, it was basically a listless, embarrassing effort all the way around. Philadelphia looked absolutely befuddled by San Antonio’s superb ball movement, allowing the Spurs to shoot 61.8% from the field. Offensively, Philadelphia wasn’t working the ball around for good looks, and couldn’t hit a thing anyway, connecting on just 34.7% of their shots. Jahlil Okafor was an ugly 3-14 in his return to the lineup following his 2-game suspension. Nik Stauskas probably had the best game of any Sixer and he wound up with a team-worst -43 on the evening. It was that kind of night.

The Sixers will have a couple days to lick their wounds and get new executive Coangelo up to speed before a winnable game Thursday against the Nets.

Other Game Notes:

• 7’3″ Boban Marjanovic, a 27-year-old giant rookie from Serbia was the main attraction in what was a clear the end of the bench 4th quarter for the Spurs. He ended up with a career-high 18 points (previous high was 6), clearly outplaying all of the big men the Sixers were throwing out there who weren’t undrafted. It speaks to the Spurs system and placing talent in the appropriate situation to succeed. Hopefully one day, Philadelphia.
• I’ll have my full thoughts on the Jerry Colangelo hiring in a piece for Today’s Fast Break. Look for that to come out sometime Tuesday afternoon.