Philly what happend?

[Derek Bodner]

Umm, not sure what you are referring to dbods -- I believe the Sixers were down by 6 at the half

Exactly what I said... they were up nearly the entire first half (blew the lead at the end), then came back to within 3 with 5 minutes left in the 3rd quarter.

[Reality]

Umm, not sure what you are referring to dbods -- I believe the Sixers were down by 6 at the half.

Randoph,

When dabods wrote:

>We went from up almost the entire half<

He means the 6ers where ahead or tied the entire 1st qtr.   They led the entire 2nd qtr until only 3:32 to go in the half.

[rickortreat]

I can see what's wrong.  It's Iverson.  He's trying to do too much, and the team is suffering because the ball isn't being distibuted.  Therefore Detroit has an easier time on defense than they should, and every missed shot becomes a running opportunity.

In addition, Detroit is shooting extremely well from the outside- much higher than they normally do.  For that, you have to give them credit- they weren't up by much when they started hitting threes, which is very uncharacteristic.

O'Brien is doing a terrible job of coaching.  We may have a better chance in an up tempo game, but the team has to find a way to execute better and consistently in the half-court to put enough pressure on Detroit to force them into mistakes, instead of the other way around.

McDyess can't miss, Marc Jackson, who was a reliable bench scorer all year is chokeing.
Webber isn't rebounding well enough, and Dalembert can't cover the lane all by himself.  Detoit is guilty of defensive 3 seconds every time down the floor, and the Sixers do nothing to cause the officials to see it, or call it.  If they are able to clog the lane, Iverson can't get through and settles for shots he has no business taking.  

But with all of this going on, Iverson and Jackson get huge minutes and a lot of shots, while Korver and Igoudala don't even touch the ball. The officals aren't making it any easier on the Sixers, at crucial times during the game, the officials bailed them out when they drove to the basket and missed, and rewarded them with several out of bounds plays, when it should have been the Sixers ball, but these are things you have to be able to overcome when you're trying to upset the defending Champs in their own building.

The key for the Sixers is to play better half-court offense.  They were matching Detroit basket for basket in the first two quarters with no problem, but stopped playing as well as the half came to an end and into the third quarter.  Iverson needs to go off ball 30-40% of the time so that the ball gets distibuted more evenly.  Igoudala gets only six shots? Pathetic.  Willie Green finally came in after O'brien gave up and put in 11 point in 9 minutes.  O'Brien should have sat Iverson and let Willie run the ball up the court for a while. Maybe AI would have seen better how to play from the bench.  

[westkoast]

You know what I noticed?  Philly letting Detroit get easy rebounds and then to make it even worse they were letting them make easy outlets passes.  If Webber and Korver spent more time battling for rebounds it would have at least slowed down the Detroit offense on alot of plays.

[rickortreat]

Very true Westkoast, they're so worried about getting back on defense, that they're letting Detroit get to the ball easier and make it easier for them to pass it up court for an easy basket.

There's a fine line between fighting for a second chance shot and getting back on D.  If you get back too early, and don't contest those rebounds, you can loose opportunities for easy baskets.  If you stay to long, the other team gets an easy basket on the other end.  

It is hard for Philly because neither Webber, Korver or Jackson are quick players.  This forces the faster ones to get down the court to play defense, and the slower ones aren't great at putting pressure on the ball anyway.  The faster ones are good team defenders, but only Dalembert is a shot-blocker.

The team did a better job of boxing out, and forceing Detroit to take outside shots.  The problem was Detoit was making those outside shots.  It's a strange phenomenon, but once you get a lead, the basket seems a lot bigger for those outside shots.  I was surprised that Detroit shot so well in the first game, and was certain they couldn't do it again, but they shot .500 and outrebounded the Sixers by 11. We were tied for points in the paint, but Detroit had 20 fast-break points to only 10 for the Sixers.

Add up those two things and the advantage the Sixers had in turnovers just wasn't enough.  

[westkoast]

Very true Westkoast, they're so worried about getting back on defense, that they're letting Detroit get to the ball easier and make it easier for them to pass it up court for an easy basket.

There's a fine line between fighting for a second chance shot and getting back on D.  If you get back too early, and don't contest those rebounds, you can loose opportunities for easy baskets.  If you stay to long, the other team gets an easy basket on the other end. 

It is hard for Philly because neither Webber, Korver or Jackson are quick players.  This forces the faster ones to get down the court to play defense, and the slower ones aren't great at putting pressure on the ball anyway.  The faster ones are good team defenders, but only Dalembert is a shot-blocker.

The team did a better job of boxing out, and forceing Detroit to take outside shots.  The problem was Detoit was making those outside shots.  It's a strange phenomenon, but once you get a lead, the basket seems a lot bigger for those outside shots.  I was surprised that Detroit shot so well in the first game, and was certain they couldn't do it again, but they shot .500 and outrebounded the Sixers by 11. We were tied for points in the paint, but Detroit had 20 fast-break points to only 10 for the Sixers.

Add up those two things and the advantage the Sixers had in turnovers just wasn't enough.

Its a fine line to walk between aggressive rebounding and getting back on the other end quickly but you still need to walk it.  In this case I actually think if they would have made Detroit work a little harder snatching the rebounds they would have had more time to get into a set defense.

One play last night came to mind where I saw Ben Wallace grab a rebound uncontested around the free throw line.  THE FREETHROW LINE!!  By uncontested I mean NO ONE was around him and no one in a Sixers uniform jumped.  Then before he even really got his feet fully set he already made an outlet pass to a streaking Hamilton.  The 2-3 Sixer players back werent even fully ready themselves.  Sixers have a task to slow them down in the half court set....these easy buckets and being able to start the offense set right away is really killing them.

[rickortreat]

Yes, and it's being exacerbated by the Sixers impatience on offense when they have the ball.  They force shots, which are more likely not to go in, and produce long rebounds that don't give the rebounders second-chance shots.  This leads to easy buckets by the Pistons.

Detroit works very hard on Defense, and have keyed on Iverson, but Iverson isn't passing out of the doubles quickly enough.  I said before the game that the Sixers needed the ball out of Iverson's hands, and it's still true.  Detroit isn't going to let Iverson get easy shots, and it's going to stay that way until other players start shooting and making them pay.  If everytime Iverson gets sandwiched, an open man takes an easy shot, Detroit will have their work cut out for them.  As it is the Sixers are playing into their hands.  Swinging the ball to the other side and letting Igoudala break down the defence, and setting up Dalembert and Korver for shots, would free Iverson to run the defenders and get open shots off screens.  

It is ironic, but the key for the Sixers is their ability to play in a half-court set, force Detroit to expend energy on defence, and pick up fouls on the quicker Sixer players.  For that to happen the Sixers need much better ball distribution than Iverson dribbling around the perimeter, forcing his way inside.  

[westkoast]

Yes, and it's being exacerbated by the Sixers impatience on offense when they have the ball.  They force shots, which are more likely not to go in, and produce long rebounds that don't give the rebounders second-chance shots.  This leads to easy buckets by the Pistons.

Detroit works very hard on Defense, and have keyed on Iverson, but Iverson isn't passing out of the doubles quickly enough.  I said before the game that the Sixers needed the ball out of Iverson's hands, and it's still true.  Detroit isn't going to let Iverson get easy shots, and it's going to stay that way until other players start shooting and making them pay.  If everytime Iverson gets sandwiched, an open man takes an easy shot, Detroit will have their work cut out for them.  As it is the Sixers are playing into their hands.  Swinging the ball to the other side and letting Igoudala break down the defence, and setting up Dalembert and Korver for shots, would free Iverson to run the defenders and get open shots off screens.  

It is ironic, but the key for the Sixers is their ability to play in a half-court set, force Detroit to expend energy on defence, and pick up fouls on the quicker Sixer players.  For that to happen the Sixers need much better ball distribution than Iverson dribbling around the perimeter, forcing his way inside.

Not to mention some more second chance points.   When I was watching I didnt see any second chance points from the Sixers.

IMO I still do not think the Detroit guards can guard Andre if he is given some space to operate.  Especially with the focus all on AI.  Wallace and Sheed were seen cheating and paying ALOT of attention to AI once the ball got in his hands.

[Guest_Randy]

Rick,

Detroit isn't shooting that much better from the arch -- they shot 341/2% from the 3 point line in the regular season and when you add the fact that Philly is used to allowing their opponents to shoot better from the arch, it's right where it should be.  

The stats that tell why the Pistons are blowing away the Sixers comes from FG% where the Pistons are shooting OVER 50% -- and it's NOT because they are shooting that well from outside -- they are just getting easy baskets!  The other stat is rebounding -- we all knew Detroit would outrebound Philly but Philly doesn't even look like they are TRYING on the boards (with the exception of Dalembert).  13 more rebounds by Detroit in game 1 and 11 more in game 2.  Philly doesn't shoot well enough from the field to overcome that kind of rebounding deficit -- and while Philly's strength is steals/turnovers, that too isn't enough of an edge to offset the lack of rebounding and defense.

[rickortreat]

When I'm talking about outside shots, I'm not just talking about threes.  It's anywthing outside the paint.

McDyess didn't shoot like that during the regular season, and neither did Billups. Hamilton shot a great game last night, hardly missed anything.  Detroit didn't average 50% from the field during the season, they're shooting over their heads.

The easy baskets are comming off of Sixer misses. Bad shots that shouldn't have been taken, and rebounds that bounce away from the Sixers players.  You can't allways control where a missed shot is going to go, but the team is shooting without waiting for a player to get into position to collect the miss.  This all comes down to execution within an offensive scheme, not Iverson taking any shot he can get.  Webber isn't fighting for rebounds, and Jackson isn't quick enough.  The refs aren't giving them any calls either, when a Detroit player goes over their backs for the board.

There is a lack of discipline in the Sixers offense, and Iverson is at the root of it, along with O'Brien who either tolerates it, or doesn't see it.  The Sixers are better than they have played during this series.  The inconsistency I noted during the regular season has manifested itelf in these games.  This is why I wanted O'Brien fired before.  The team isn't playing up to it's potential and that's why they're not winning these games.

I don't mind them loosing if they play their best game and don't win, but I haven't seen a good game from them yet in the series.  The end of the first half and the beggining of the second, the team did not respond.  Detroit is imposing it's will and the Sixers being a young team are not maintaing their composure.  It is Iverson who's determining this, and it shouldn't be.  The coach has to make sure the plays are being run and being run well, and if the players aren't gettting it done, like Jackson last night, or Iverson, they should be pulled.

The boards were even in the first half, but the discrepency widened in the second.  The big part of it is bad shot selection by the Sixers, although it is clear that Detroit is a better rebounding team.  Dalembert is the best rebounder on the floor, but he can't do it all by himself.  In another year or two, he'll develop some post-up moves and the Sixers will be a force to be reckoned with, but they're going to need a real PF who can rebound and guard to go along with him.  Webber isn't that player.  

[Guest_Randy]

Rick, you still don't get it, do you?  The reason WHY Detroit is shooting "above their heads?" -- it's a lack of pressure from Philly!  It's the reason why teams shoot better -- both from the floor but esp. from the arch against Philly.  AI does a decent job in the passing lanes but his ability to pressure doesn't come in shooting the ball -- Andre is the only one who can effectively pressure a shooter in Philly and he can't do it all (and frankly, I think he is suffering from a little playoff rookie pressure -- which is quite understandable).

As for Dalembert being the best rebounder on the floor -- I disagree with you.  Big Ben is a better rebounder -- Dalembert has played MORE minutes and he isn't getting any help on the boards -- Wallace is.  If nobody else in Detroit was rebounding, Wallaces numbers would be higher!

I don't know anyone (outside of Philly fans) that are really surprised by the way this series is going.

[Rickortreat]

IS there something wrong with your reading comprehension Randy?

The easy baskets are comming off of Sixer misses. Bad shots that shouldn't have been taken, and rebounds that bounce away from the Sixers players. You can't allways control where a missed shot is going to go, but the team is shooting without waiting for a player to get into position to collect the miss. This all comes down to execution within an offensive scheme, not Iverson taking any shot he can get. Webber isn't fighting for rebounds, and Jackson isn't quick enough. The refs aren't giving them any calls either, when a Detroit player goes over their backs for the board.

I'm fine with Detroit taking shots from the outside, even with no-one on them.  They'll cool off eventually, particuarly if Philly is close in the score.