After pushing the Rockets to their limits Friday night in Houston but falling just shy of their first win, the Sixers traveled to San Antonio Monday night to conclude their three-game trip to the lone star state with a matchup against the Spurs. For those of you who may not know, Sixers head coach Brett Brown is a product of legendary Spurs coach Greg Popovich. The two developed a great friendship over the years while they were together in San Antonio and unsurprisingly Brown’s coaching style is extremely similar to his mentor. On this night, Brown’s young and inexperienced Sixers would be doing battle with the veteran and much more experienced Spurs group that were looking to teach the Sixers a lesson or two about growing as a team in the NBA. The veterans dominated early on as expected, allowing San Antonio to pull away and improve their record to 6-4 with a 100-75 win over the now 0-10 Sixers.
It has been a known fact in the past that Popovich sometimes likes to rest his stars like Duncan, Parker, and Ginobili in games versus struggling teams like the Sixers, but that was not the case in this one. They hit the floor but it wasn’t long before Pop was able to give his boys a rest after exploding in the first quarter, resulting in a 30-13 lead and the early deficit was just too much for the Sixers to overcome. The team of future Hall of Famers led the way throughout the first half, guaranteeing all of them a nice warm resting spot on the bench in the second half. Forward Tim Duncan had his typical night recording 10 points to go along with 9 rebounds. Not to mention, the Spurs young star Kawhi Leonard who only finished with five points was more of a factor on the boards. With three minutes remaining in the second quarter he already accumulated 9 rebounds and was single handedly killing the Sixers on the glass. K.J. McDaniels didn’t do a bad job of stopping the scoring part of Kawhi’s game but he was no match for the all-star on the boards. Quite unexpectedly the Sixers were doing one thing right in the first half, which was their ability to force turnovers. They had forced eight turnovers by the mid-way point of the second quarter but they were unable to capitalize on the offensive end because of continuous bad habits including poor shot selection and turning the ball over themselves. They only recorded 34 points before halftime and trailed 46-34 at the break.
Even with the stars on the bench the Spurs began to pull away in the second half. Center Matt Bonner led the way for them scoring a team-high 18 points on 7/10 shooting as well as the young backup guard Cory Joseph who played well contributing 14 points off the bench. The Spurs controlled the game throughout the night and made 44 percent of their shots and 39 percent from downtown. Although they turned the ball over 18 times, it was the Sixers inability to capitalize that allowed the Spurs to coast their way to the easy victory.
Bright spots for the Sixers tonight were as usual difficult to find, especially in the development of Nerlens Noel. The rookie only managed only 6 points and 4 rebounds in 25 minutes of action and was continuously dominated sown low the entire night. He has noticeably fallen into a bit of a slump, which will be something interesting for everyone to keep a close eye on as he tries to prove to us he can become a stable big man in this league. Michael Carter-Williams was able to contribute 16 points to the losing effort, which led the team. Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, only typing that name once tonight, had himself a nice night resulting in 13 points, but the Sixers struggles are still tremendously visible in all aspects of the game. As a team they managed to shoot an atrocious 32.5 percent from the floor and only 15.4 percent from three-point range. It does not get much worse then that. This team just doesn’t have any ability to put the basketball in the hoop right now. They lack scoring and you can’t expect to win games if you don’t score. Seventy-five points isn’t going to cut it against any NBA team.
Here’s the optimistic outlook on this outing. Tonight we watched the Spurs who are probably the best NBA franchise in terms of success over the past fifteen years or so. The team they assembled back in the late 90’s and have been putting on the floor since, resulting in years and years of success is the type of team Sam Hinkie envisions in the Sixers future. They were built exactly the same way the Sixers are attempting to build their roster. The end result is still unclear and it will be that way for a while, all we can do is hope and trust.
Next Up: Wednesday Novemeber 19th vs Boston, 7pm Tip
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