Elton Brand was phenomenal.  In the decisive fourth period that his team trailed for much of — and, for context, the Sixers were coming off not only their worse loss of the season, but one that knocked them into second place for the first time since December — the veteran went 5-of-6 from the floor for 13 points, and added five rebounds (three of which were offensive), two assists, and a block.  He hit big shot after big shot after big shot.  That, ladies and gentlemen, is clutch.

His knee looked fine tonight.  His outside shot was falling — he went 3-of-4 from deep — and he did typically fine work defensively when he was matched up with Joe Johnson.  He delivered 43 very high-quality minutes.

He was productive on the glass, but for the second straight game his touch was shaky.  The last two nights, Spence has gone 5-of-17 from the floor.

The Kid had a strong third period, scoring 11 points.  He also played the role of good solider for Collins — spending a lot of time at power forward in the dead-legged Thad Young’s stead.  Though Josh Smith scored 34, much of it came against Thad.

In what has become an increasingly common occurrence, Holiday’s offensive game was shaky on Saturday, while his defense was just shy of extraordinary.  He held the underrated Jeff Teague to 8 points on 8 shots.

Moving along…

On night two of a back-to-back, Lou, like Thad Young, looked exhausted.  His effectiveness suffered for it.

That’s a lot of zeros.

Like Lou, Thad struggled.  He looked thin, uncharacteristically unexplosive, and was out-hustled and out-muscled by Josh Smith all night.

After following up his career night with a dud, Jodie bounced back with a strong showing for the Sixers.  He played all 12 fourth period minutes.

At first blush, he looks like he contributed. At second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth blushes–not so much.  When he was matched up against Nene, which he was for much of the game, he was outplayed.  Badly.

Sure your left patella tendon is okay Andre?  Positive?  Good, I’m glad you’re well.  Do us all a favor, lay off the behind the back passes.  Style points don’t actually count on the scoreboard.

Six points on 10 shots is not helpful production from a center.  Oh, and that’s what Spencer Hawes had.

What happened to the torrid rebounding pace?  And the general…I don’t know, confident play?

This was Jrue’s worst night of the season.

Blech.

Lou and Thad were both bright spots in the dreadful performance.  Comparative bright spots.

He looked a lot like a player a team would be willing to trade for cap relief tonight.

The one 76er who consistently attacked the rim.  Alright, occasionally attacked it.

After the best game of his career, what an encore.  It’s like if Francis Ford Coppola followed up Godfather with Hudson Hawk.

Whatever.

Whatever.

The “Ol’ Chevy” played very well and came just short of what would have been his second double-double in the last three games.  However, zero trips to the FT line for a PF/C who saw 24 mins. of action and took 9 shots, is not a good sign for your team.  Over his last 3 runs EB has been good for 15.3 ppg. & 8.6 boards per nights.  Too bad the Sixers are wasting these performances by Brand.

He got the start in Dre’s absence and played okay overall.  Four of his 11 points came during garbage time in the 4th Q.

Forget his Achilles issue, maybe Hawes should go back on the injured list until he finds his game.  In the last two losses, Hawes has been simply awful and especially glaring is that he has been weak with the ball.

Does anyone remember the last time Turner played well?  He saw minutes during garbage time in the 4th and still could not score a basket.  ET is averaging just 6 pts. per run over his last three games.

Jrue got off to a hot start (10 pts. in 1st Q) because he was willing to put the ball on the deck and go to the hole.  Unfortunately his shooting touch escaped him after the 4:43 mark of the 1st Q and he never scored another bucket last night.  In the 2nd half he was a disaster shooting the ball.  He began the 3rd Q going 0-3, including a couple of wild, ill-advised shots and he never recovered.

Just a horrible night for Louis.

We really like the way Sam took the ball to the tin and finished with authority.  He clearly is not afraid to drive in among the trees and attack the basket.  Maybe Dre could take some lessons from his new teammate.

One of the few “off” nights in an otherwise stellar season, so we’ll give Thad a passing grade.  Still there is no excuse for missing those FTs.

This is what it takes for the promising rookie to get back out on the floor?  A blow out loss in San Antonio.  That’s sad Doug.  Well, at least he got to the FT line, now if he could just hit the freebies.

So is Iguodala’s recent swoon a result of the knee tendinitis or is he simply tired and they dug up this old injury as a reason to give him the night off?  We hope it’s the second thought.

Sir Elton was just phenomenal tonight.  In the decisive third quarter that the Sixers won 37-17, the old Chevy scored 14, and left to loud, and deserved, cheers.

Iguodala had a classically Iguodala game: he wasn’t particularly demonstrative offensively, but he filled it up.  And after Paul Pierce torched him early with 11 fast points, AI9 clamped down to hold him to 9 the rest of the way.

Hawes, for the first time in a long time, looked like his best self tonight.  He was solid underneath, got his mid-range game going, and was an able distributor.  In one stretch, he gave Brand and Holiday beautiful looks on consecutive possessions, then finished himself on the third.

ET, who followed his breakout by breaking down, looked better tonight than his numbers suggest.  After a slow start, he did some brilliant work as a distributor in the fourth.

Jrue kept the Sixers in it when the Celts were shooting lights out earlier, but disappeared when the home team made its run.

Lou’s sweet shooting put the stake in the heart of the Celts, and their bid to take over the Atlantic Division lead.

He played?

When everything was going wrong for the 7-6, Thad got his mid-range game going and gave me a reason to believe. Someone like you, makes it hard to live without, somebody else…

Nice knowing ya