We chose today’s recap headline because if you watched SportsCenter last night or this morning you read a lot of the mainstream recaps of the 76ers (26-48) 111-93 loss to the Oklahoma Thunder you’d probably think that Kevin Durant of the Oklahoma Thunder swooped into the Wachovia Center last night and administered a solo beat down on the Sixers. 

While there’s no doubt that KD was simply amazing (26 & 10) and made last night’s defeat very entertaining to watch, we’d argue that he had a ton of help in securing a W last night for the Thunder and ending the Sixers two-game winning streak.  The problem for us here at Philadunkia is that most of the help KD received came from the Sixers.

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The 76ers have won two games in a row against very good NBA teams and one could argue that during those two victories the Sixers have played better basketball then at any other point in the 2009-10 season. 

One reason behind the Sixers sudden display of solid basketball has been the play of rookie point guard Jrue Holiday.  Over the last two games, Holiday has been a tremendous floor leader and set the tone on defense while stuffing the stat sheet as well — 14 ppg., 9.5 apg., and 5 steals per night.

However, if you check the stats and talk to the other Sixer players you’ll soon learn that this is more then just a one or two week surge and that overall Holiday has been playing very well during the entire month of March.  To be honest, for us here at Philadunkia, Holiday has been one of the few bright spots for the Sixers in this train wreck of a season.  We’re not saying the 6-4 rookie is going to be the next Gary Payton, but in our opinion and those of some NBA scouts, Holiday is going to be really, really good very soon.  Which is good news for us and all Sixers fans who truly need a reason to believe that the future of this team will be better then the present. 

Recently the rising face of the Sixers franchise gave Philadunkia a few minutes to discuss his game, Allen Iverson, the reasons the Sixers have struggled so badly this season and more.       

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This Friday 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 Atlanta Hawks.

Given the horrific play of the 76ers for 90% of the last two months and the fact that they’ve had no idea how to “Protect this House” in 2009-10 (3^rd worst home record in the League), we were tempted to quickly write down tonight’s game against the Atlanta Hawks as a blow out loss and move on.  However, the win in Milwaukee on Wednesday night highlighted a trend with this struggling Sixers team.  For some reason they frequently rise up against “elite”, playoff-bound teams, and give them a good game or even pull out the occasional upset.  In addition to the shocking win two nights ago at Milwaukee, the Sixers played decently but lost to Orlando on Monday and put in “spirited” efforts earlier this month against Cleveland and Boston.  Back in February, they beat the Spurs and gave the Lakers all they could handle before going down in the final ticks.

So we don’t expect the Sixers to get embarrassed tonight, but we still think a W is out of the question.  We know their defense is not good enough to stop the talented and deep Hawks who feature the scorerslike Joe Johnson, Josh Smith, Jamal Crawford, Al Horford, Marvin Williams and Jeff Teague.  Additionally, Philadunkia’s home team doesn’t have enough firepower to go toe-to-toe with the Hawks offense in a shoot out style game.  So after further consideration, our original instinct was probably correct, tonight the Sixers are going to take another L and inch closer to the 4^th spot in 2010 NBA Lotter, but they’ll do it gracefully.   

For a little more insight into the Hawks team the Sixers face tonight, we turn to our man Bret LaGree from hoopinionblog.com to answer two questions on Atlanta from us here at Philadunkia as well as provide us with two points of analysis on his Hawks squad from an insider’s perspective.
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There are some who say we here at Philadunkia have been too critical of the 76ers on the court, the sidelines and in the front office this season.  Hell, Louis Williams went as far as to block us from his Twitter account feed apparently because our comments on the Sixers combo-guard and the team offended him.  We disagree with Louis and the rest of  Phialdunkia’s critics and offer that we’ve been more then fair in analyzing all elements of the 76ers during this absolute train wreck of a season. 

So we have to admit that a a smile crept across our collective mugs when we found the following NBA insider gem in this week’s Sports Illustrated which supports many of the things we have been saying  about the Sixers efforts over the last couple of weeks.

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Who was that 76ers team last night that took the floor against the red-hot Milwaukee Bucks?  We vaguely remember a team wearing the Sixers uniforms that hustled, played with intensity and shared the ball winning some games earlier this year, but that was a long, long, long time ago.  We certainly haven’t seen those players in recent memory. 

Well whoever those guys were that put up a solid performance in Brewery-town last night, here’s hoping they don’t come back again until 2010-11.  Because if they keep playing like that, the Sixers (25-47) will blow any chance they have of climbing into the 4-spot in this year’s NBA Lottery.  Which here at Philadunkia is now the ultimate goal for the remainder of the 2009-10 season.

Take a quick look at the unusual elements that came together for the Sixers last night that produced a shocking W  over Milwaukee :

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This mid-week 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 Milwaukee Bucks.

We’re going to keep this one brief as we are focused on the NBA Lottery in June and not what’s happening on the court with the 76ers.  Philadunkia’s home team will be hard pressed to win this game tonight and here’s why: Milwaukee is one of the hottest teams in the NBA having won three straight and 9 of their last 10;  the Sixers play horrific defense and thus will not be able to stop any of the Bucks big scorers — Brandon Jennings, Andrew Bogut or John Salmons;  Thad and Louis stayed home on this trip; and in general the Sixers stopped caring a while ago.  

For a little more insight into the Bucks team the Sixers face tonight, we turn to our man Jeremy Schmidt from bucksketball.com to answer two questions on Milwaukee from us here at Philadunkia as well as provide us with two points of analysis on this Bucks squad from an insider’s perspective. 

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On the Lottery Watch front — the Knicks and Pacers won last night, while the Pistons and Wiz lost.   The Sixers remain tied with Sacto for the 6th worst record in the League.

Over at ESPN.com, Jrue Holiday has moved into the Top 15 on David Thorpe’s “Rookie Watch”.  Apparently one NBA scout told Thorpe, ” (Tyreke) Evans is going to be the best guard in this draft, but Holiday is going to be the best point guard.”

In Foxsports.com’s latest NBA power rankings the Sixers have dropped to 24th.  John Kallinsky’s quote, “When you lose twice to the Knicks in one week, the season can’t end fast enough.”  That sounds about right to us.

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The 76ers (24-46) continued their embarrassing level of play this weekend with a loss on Friday night to the New York Knicks (92-88) up at at MSG and then returned home to the Wachovia Center on Saturday where they promptly got steam rolled (98-84) by the Chicago Bulls. 

We said two weeks ago that many players on the Sixers had mailed it in for 2009-10 and we are now witnessing first hand how ugly it can get for an NBA team that’s had it’s spirit broken and has become simply disinterested in competing on a nightly basis.

The good news behind the Sixers recent on court performances, which have been very painful to watch, is that the mounting losses are pulling Philadunkia’s home team closer to a top five NBA Lottery selection this June. 

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If you follow the Philadelphia sports scene then you know that the 76ers and Flyers are both owned by Comcast-Spectacor, the Philadelphia-based sports and entertainment firm that is part of the multi-billion dollar, cable services and communications conglomerate known the world over as Comcast.  It also holds that if you are a fan of Philly sports you also are most likely aware that Ed Snider is the Chairman of Comcast-Spectacor and the almighty executive power behind  the 76ers and Flyers.

It’s no secret in Philadelphia that between his two sports franchises, Snider’s favorite son is the Flyers and the 76ers come in a distant second.  We can’t say we blame Snider for his love affair with the black and orange and his heavy involvement in the organization, not at all.  You see back in 1966, Snider single handily convinced the NHL to expand to Philadelphia and then gave birth to the Philly franchise by using his home as collateral on a loan that helped create the Flyers.  Snider’s obvious favoritism towards the Flyers is something 76ers fans have come to expect and accept over the years.

However, it now is becoming readily apparent that Snider’s latest slight of our beloved Sixers probably cost the team the 2009-10 season and for that we are taking Mr. Snider to task.     

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The 76ers (24-44) did what they are supposed to do against a team like the 2009-10 Nets — inferior on paper and horrible on-the-court — they won handily.  Seeing as today is the first day of March Madness, we’re not going to waste too much time on a game that we’re sure made David Stern blush with pride. 

To the Sixers credit they were determined not to be the lead story on SportsCenter last night, so they came out and jumped all over the Nets.  Thanks to 14 first quarter points from Andre Iguodala (20 total), Philadunkia’s home team put the hurt on the pitiful Nets quickly, led by 10 points after the 1st and never looked back.  The 108-97 win was not as close as the score indicates and also ended the Sixers five game losing streak.

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