We’re not super excited about the 76ers win (9-22) last night in Sacramento.  Why you ask?   Well the Sixers did what solid teams are supposed to do when faced with injury riddled, inferior competition – the Sixers handled their business.  The Kings (14-17) are one of the worst defensive teams in the League and were without their two of their best players in lead ROY candidate Tyreke Evans and scoring machine Kelvin Martin.  Both Evans and Martin were out because of injuries.  That’s 50 points per game that was missing from Sacto’s lineup when they took they floor against the Sixers.  So while we’re pleased the Sixers got the W and we’re happy about the two-game win streak, we’re still not ready to declare that this season has been turned around.

Now, with that disclaimer out of the way, there were several very positive things that happened for the 76ers last night and the breakdown is after the jump.  

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This edition of “Fo’ with the Foes” — Philadunkia’s advanced scouting series which with the help of an accomplished journalist from around the NBA beat or blog world, previews upcoming 76ers opponents — features tonight’s opponent the Sacramento Kings (14-16) who are the Sixers foes on game three of the current six game road trip. 

We expect a high scoring affair tonight as Sacto is giving up 105 ppg. on the season which ranks them 26^th in the League, while the 76ers are allowing over 101 ppg., which ranks Philadunkia’s home team 19^th in the NBA.  The biggest question for us regarding tonight’s game is who on the Sixers will attempt to guard Philly native Tyreke Evans.  If Eddie Jordan asks Louis Williams or Allen Iverson to guard Sacto’s outstanding rookie (20, 5 & 4 per night), Evans will hang a 50-spot on the Sixers.  Louis and Iverson are simply too small to guard the 6-6, 220 pound Evans.  Additionally, both are terrible on-ball defenders.  We’d like to see the major task of guarding Evans fall to either Andre Iguodala or fellow rookie Jrue Holiday.  Obviously AI9 and Holiday have the size to better match-up with Evans, but more importantly, both are outstanding perimeter defenders and we believe their defensive skills may be able to slow Evans down some.
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The Sixers 104-93 win over the Blazers (20-13) last night proved a few things : Willie Green should never start again for the rest of his career; Andre Iguodala should focus more on getting his teammates shots rather then tossing up jumpers himself; with Dalembert, Brand, and Speights the Sixers have three men who can score in the paint and this should be taken advantage of in up coming games; and if Lou Williams and Thaddeus Young are going to start than they must be able to play consistently for an entire game and not just show flashes of greatness.

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The 76ers came into Utah after four days off during which Eddie Jordan supposedly held a mini “defensive training camp”.  Well Jordan may want to hire someone else to run his next “defensive training camp” because after the Sixers effort on that end of the floor Saturday night against the Jazz, it’s obvious that his pupils learned nothing.  

Most disturbing for us here at Philadunkia was the ease with which the Jazz, specifically Deron Williams and AK47, penetrated the lane for buckets or to drop a dime to a waiting big.  The Jazz scored 44 points in the paint thanks to the Sixers inability to protect the lane.  The Sixers perimeter defense and help rotations have been horrible all year and one could argue that we should NOT have been so disturbed by the ease with which the Jazz got to the rim.  However, the spacing, cuts and dribble-drives used by the Jazz made the Sixers look so silly at times that we couldn’t help but get angry.

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It’s Christmas Eve Day and with our presents all bought and wrapped, we’re kicking back here at the Philadunkia offices with a little Holiday luncheon-thing as we get ready to hang with family for the next couple of days.

But before we go, we wanted to send a last second 76ers wish list to ol’ St. Nick up at the North Pole because to be honest the home team needs his help.  Philadunkia believes that Sixers fans have been pretty good this year and that Santa Claus should come through for us on at least a couple of the items on this list.

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Honestly, if you didn’t already think that the 76ers 2009-10  season was on the brink of complete collapse, then last night’s F-ugly loss to the Washington Wizards should have been the final piece of evidence you needed to throw in the towel.  Thanks to a brutal 4^th quarter effort, the Sixers flushed three quarters of decent play down the toilet, took an L without much of a fight and now what little hope there was of gaining some momentum off the big W in Boston has vanished. 

You’ve heard this story before, horrific defense, questionable lineups / substitutions and poor shooting doom Philadunkia’s home team.

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In summer 2008, the Philadelphia 76ers had reached a crossroad.  Still playing in the shadow of Allen Iverson, the franchise’s most beloved former player, the 76ers had just finished a grueling 40-42 season that ended with the Sixers young guns surprisingly taking the number two seeded Detroit Pistons to a Game 6 in their playoff match-up.  The city was craving for a basketball superstar and the team was searching for a go to guy.  Ed Stefanski, then the Sixers newly anointed GM was hoping to make an immediate impact by solving both problems through free agency.  Bringing in one big-name free agent Stefanski determined would give this city the star player it deserved and also add that guy to the roster who could carry the Sixers deep into the NBA playoffs.  Unfortunately for Sixers fans, the organization found none of the above in Summer 2008 and the rest as they say is history.  

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For weeks the Sixers have come just a little short of winning games.  A 106-105 loss to Charlotte, 90-86 loss to Detroit, 96-91 loss to Houston, 108-101 loss to Cleveland and you could sense that with just a little something extra the Sixers would be winning these ball games.  Now the Sixers know the answer, and it is not Allen Iverson.  Marreese Speights in just his second game back from a partial MCL tear in his left knee showed Philadunkia nation that he hasn’t lost a step since he went down in early November. Speights compiled 17 points and 10 rebounds last night off the bench, and we’d like to think that the final shot which he took was a nice assist to Elton Brand for the game winning put back which gave the Sixers a 98-97 victory of the (20-5) Celtics last night.

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This Friday edition (Hence the Alison Preston pics) of “Fo’ with the Foes” — Philadunkia’s advanced scouting series which with the help of an accomplished journalist from around the NBA beat or blog world, previews upcoming 76ers opponents — features tonight’s opponent the Eastern Conference leading Boston Celtics. 

We’re not sure what to say about tonight’s game because even if the 76ers play as well as they did against Cleveland on Wednesday night (forgetting the last 5 mins. of course), the Sixers still will not win this game.  It should be noted that we held that opinion before it was announced that Iverson will not be making the trip to Beantown. 

One interesting thing we will be watching tonight is how rookie Jrue Holiday does against the C’s Rojon Rondo, one of the fastest point men in the League.  Jrue is bigger, plays tremendous lockdown D and has great fundamental defensive footwork, so we bet Jrue will try to get physical with Rondo and wear him down.  That is if he can stay in front of the super quick Boston guard.  We know Jrue will not shut down Rondo, we are just eager to see if he can hold his own.

For a little more insight into the Celtics team the Sixers face tonight, we turn to our man Zach Lowe from celticshub.com to answer two questions on the Celtics from us here at Philadunkia as well as provide us with two points of analysis on this Boston squad from an insider’s perspective.  A special thanks to Zach for giving us Sixers fans a ray of hope in his points of analysis section.

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“Close” is an arena usually reserved for success in horseshoes and hand grenades, and unfortunately basketball doesn’t fit the mold.  Thus the 76ers valiant effort to momentarily dethrone LeBron and the Cavs still counts as an L for the Sixers and another win for the Cavs, who pushed the struggling Sixers to their 13^th loss in 14 games with a 108-101 win last night.  Coming off of their first win in the calendar month the Sixers were looking to build upon that momentum, string together some wins and put themselves back in the playoff picture, which shockingly they are not too far removed from.  However, LeBron had other plans as his 36 points and clutch three point shooting ruined a tremendous effort by the Sixers.  An effort that would have produced a W against all but the four or five teams in the NBA that operate at Cleveland’s elite level. 

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