Sixers Ward Off Hornets for 4th Straight WFC Win

By Sean Kennedy (@PhillyFastBreak)

Philadelphia 89, Charlotte 81 – Box Score

Not too long ago, it would have been inconceivable to think the Sixers would win 4 home games in the entire season, let alone 4 of them in a row. Facing a Hornets squad that had won three straight games and 7 of their last 9, Brett Brown’s club had a difficult task ahead of it to make that happen. However, as Jared Leto might belt out, it’s a brave new world and we’ve begun to expect the unexpected from this rapidly developing young Sixers team.

With Michael Carter-Williams once again out of the lineup for the Sixers, things started off very rocky against a Charlotte team that sports one of the best defenses in the league. Behind the typical yeoman-like work of Big Al Jefferson on the left block (team-highs 18 points on 9-17 shooting, 9 rebounds), the Hornets got just enough offensively to build a lead as big as 16 points toward the end of the second quarter.

Then, the game turned quite a bit when Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Charlotte’s best perimeter defender, left the game with a strained right hamstring about 5 minutes before halftime. Suddenly, the Sixers were able to get loose a little bit on the outside to play with their flashy new toy, the three-ball. Philly finished the half on a 12-2 run to enter the locker room down just 6 points. The highlights of that run were a couple triples from Hollis Thompson, who dropped 18 points overall on 3-6 shooting from long distance. This line marks 5 straight games of multiple threes on 50% or better shooting for Thompson, a positively Korver-like stretch.

After the break, Hollis figuratively handed the torch over to Robert Covington to lead the Sixers’ charge. The team went on a 22-4 run early in the second half, with Covington scoring 11 points in the third quarter alone on his way to a game-high 22 points (plus 8 rebounds). Big Shot Bob was 5-10 from behind the arc and it’s now a reasonably short list of players in the league who have more games making 5 threes in a game this season. This guy wasn’t on an NBA roster three months ago and the Sixers have him for just $1M a year through the 2017-18 season. Well done, Mr. Hinkie.

The Sixers opened up a double-digit lead and, especially with Kemba Walker sidelined, the Hornets are not the type of team equipped to comeback from a large deficit. It didn’t hurt that Nerlens Noel bounced back from a poor game in Boston to help anchor the defense with 3 steals and 2 blocks, including this one:

Now all that’s left to do is go for 5 straight wins at home. What’s that? The next team coming to town is Golden State Monday night. Oh well, 4 straight wins was pretty good.

https://platform.vine.co/static/scripts/embed.jsOther Game Note:

Tim Frazier made his first career NBA start filling in for MCW, and had another weird stat line. He was a team-best +15 plus/minus on the night, despite going 0-7 from the field for 0 points. The reason the team was still effective offensively when he was on the court was his willingness to push the ball and find open teammates, as we see here on one of his 8 assists: 

One day the Sixers will have a true point guard doing nice like things like Frazier there, but who can also shoot the ball a bit (whether or not that is ever MCW remains to be seen). When that day comes, look out world.