By Sean Kennedy (@PhillyFastBreak)
Monday night wasn’t the embarrassing affront-to-the-league variety of loss, which I guess these days can be considered a small victory in itself. Instead, we saw what happens when the reigning NBA champion with multiple hall-of-famers goes up against a team whose active roster doesn’t have as many years of NBA experience combined as Tim Duncan.
Amazingly, Tim Duncan has more NBA experience (17 years) than every active member of the #Sixers combined (16 years).
— Max Rappaport (@MaxRappaport) November 17, 2014
So it wasn’t exactly surprising to see San Antonio perform their version of tiki-taka and get open look after open look from behind the arc, finishing 10-26 from downtown for the game (which is actually just an average night for them). The problem at this stage of the Sixers’ organizational development is they’ve yet to find or roster players for whom putting a ball through a cylinder from a distance of over 20 feet is anything other than a theoretical physics exercise. Philadelphia also attempted 26 threes, but made just 4, which was even helped by Luc Mbah a Moute’s 2-4 night (bringing his season line up to a sparkling 26.1%). When it comes to offensive ball movement and a beautiful brand of basketball, the Spurs play chess and the Sixers play Jenga with half the blocks already restacked.
Still, the Sixers showed some fight, bringing a 21-point deficit down to 10 in the fourth quarter, before things got out of hand in the closing minutes. Full disclosure, this is the point where I mention the caveat that Coach Popovich sat his stars for basically the entirety of the second half; Tim Duncan played just 16 minutes, Tony Parker 18, Kawhi Leonard 20, and Manu Ginobili 12.
Even so, Michael Carter-Williams looked as good as he has since returning the line-up, shooting 7-14 for a team-high 16 points. Things appeared to have slowed back down for him on the court; that frantic look to his game in his first couple outings had largely disappeared. Anytime he and his Sixers teammates tried to make a run though, pass-pass-pass (Matt Bonner open corner three), topside pick-and-roll (easy Danny Green triple). The Spurs make the game look very easy; hopefully someday, Popovich disciple Brett Brown will have the roster pieces in place to do the same.
Other game notes:
- Robert Covington made his Sixers debut and definitely looked like an upgrade over some of the other bench fodder on the team. Although he shot just 1-5, Covington was very active, getting to the line twice and hitting all 4 of his free throws, and assisting on 2 buckets with no turnovers. He was the only Sixer with a positive plus/minus on the night (+4 in his 17 minutes). Give him the three minutes JaKarr Sampson wasted out there and I think a 20-minute a night guy off the bench sounds about right.
- After one of the four made threes by Matt Bonner, Zumoff referred to him as the ‘Red Rocket’, somehow neglecting the far superior ‘Red Mamba‘ nickname. I was really hoping we would receive some info on who currently owns the belt in the Bonner Challenge.
The Sixers finally return home to host the Celtics on Wednesday night. Mark it down, first win of the season.
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