<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">SAN ANTONIO, Oct. 27 (Ticker) -- Brent Barry reminded everyone that he is still a member of the San Antonio Spurs. Barry scored 21 points, including a tiebreaking 3-pointer with 37 seconds left, as the Spurs edged the Philadelphia 76ers, 101-98, in the preseason finale for both teams. In the offseason, the defending NBA champion Spurs signed former All-Stars Michael Finley and Nick Van Exel. Both players figure to take minutes away from Barry, who slumped last season, his first in San Antonio. On Thursday, Barry came off the bench to make 8-of-9 shots, including 5-of-6 from the arc. He added six assists and five rebounds. Barry's last 3-pointer gave the Spurs a 99-96 lead. After a dunk by Philadelphia's Steven Hunter, who scored 24 points, San Antonio's Tony Parker missed two free throws with 10 seconds to play. That gave the Sixers a chance, but Chris Webber missed a short jump hook that was rebounded by Tim Duncan, who was fouled and sank both free throws with 1.7 seconds to go. Kyle Korver missed a long 3-pointer at the buzzer.</div> <div align="center">Recap | Boxscore | Postgame Quotes</div> It's preseason, so the final score shouldn't be taken too seriously. It's all about the moral victories in preseason. And as far as that goes, we had an amazing game. While the Dalembert injury overshadowed what was great for us, what we had certainly had things going for us such as? When Webber played his first preseason we didn't expect much. But to our surprised he had 14 points and 8 rebounds. And logically one wouldn?t think we would see a performance like that again especially against the Spurs, but he doubled up and had 21 Points and 12 rebounds against the Duncan & the Spurs. If you ask me, that's very impressive. For a guy that had trouble grabbing 6 rebounds last season to grabbing 12 boards in his second back is amazing. As of now, I think it's safe to say that C-Webb is back. Once that quad fully heals he will be doing wonders for us. Now for Hunter. From the boxscore he looks like an All-Star. 24 Points, 8 Rebounds, 2 Blocks on 9-15 shooting in addition to 6-8 from the FT line is pretty darn good. Hunter was a beast, and since Dalembert is not condition to be an impact player right now, Hunter should start and will thrive with the guidance of A.I & Webber. Now as for the downer, we know about Dalembert injury, so that's a setback. What I'm also concerned about is Korver. Yet again, another bad shooting night for him. At first I'd say it's because he is rusty, now I'm about 98% sure it?s because of the muscle he added on. Why? Well Mike Bibby an exceptional shooter but he also added pounds of muscle and he is also off with his shot. Korver added 14 pounds to Mike Bibby 8 pounds, so the additional muscle is the cause to this bad shooting. Even with the struggle he will regain his touch back, but the question is how long will it take? With the injury to Dalembert and Hunter probably starting we have some missing holes and we are going to need everybody to step up and that means Korver shooting will have to get back where its used to be. If not, there potentially goes another player out of the starting lineup. Salmons have made a case for the starting role, so I wouldn't be surprised if he got the nod over Korver on opening night. Salmons would be great, but two out of five or our original starters missing will hurt chemistry which is something we haven?t even perfected yet. Now, for the mist impressive part of our "win" was not only the fact that we kept up with the defending champs with an off Korver, no dalembert and no Iverson it was that we OUTREBOUNDED an opposing team. No that?s not a typo, we actually out rebounded a team. This is deserving of breaking news. Looks like Webber presence on the rebounding helped after all.
After looking at the recaps, I like the Steven Hunter signing even more and more by the day. And Webber played execellent basketball, I'm really pumped for next week.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Avery:</div><div class="quote_post"> What I'm also concerned about is Korver. Yet again, another bad shooting night for him. At first I'd say it's because he is rusty, now I'm about 98% sure it?s because of the muscle he added on. Why? Well Mike Bibby an exceptional shooter but he also added pounds of muscle and he is also off with his shot. Korver added 14 pounds to Mike Bibby 8 pounds, so the additional muscle is the cause to this bad shooting. Even with the struggle he will regain his touch back, but the question is how long will it take.</div> Really, you don't think it's because Iverson wasn't playing? You know Korver thrives off of AI. He shot 3-5, 4-7, 2-4, 2-3 from distance in the 4 games AI played. which is 58 percent. He shot 3-8, 3-8 , 1-11, 1-4 in the 4 games AI wasn't in, which is 25.8 percent. And besides from the 5-15 game against the Spurs earlier this month, Korver has shot above 50 percent from the field overall(including 2 pointers) in games Iverson has played. In every game Iverson hasn't played in, they were all like 5-19 or something like that. http://www.nba.com/playerfile/kyle_korver/...game_stats.html Look it up, AI played Rockets,Spurs,Cavs,Cavs. Look how much different Korver's shooting is in these games than the other 4 games. I'm sure the muscles have some kinda impact, but i think the reason is AI's absence.
<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Really, you don't think it's because Iverson wasn't playing? You know Korver thrives off of AI. He shot 3-5, 4-7, 2-4, 2-3 from distance in the 4 games AI played. which is 58 percent. He shot 3-8, 3-8 , 1-11, 1-4 in the 4 games AI wasn't in, which is 25.8 percent. And besides from the 5-15 game against the Spurs earlier this month, Korver has shot above 50 percent from the field overall(including 2 pointers) in games Iverson has played. In every game Iverson hasn't played in, they were all like 5-19 or something like that.</div> Excellent point, I like how you digged that out. You would have stumbled me on that, BUT I happened to see three of the four games that Korver played without Iverson and he had shots a point blank range and they were nothing but bricks. Again, nice point about Iverson's absence but that does not explain how he misses wide open shots, and at times it's practice/shootaround type wide open shots. Now if Iverson playing has a pychological effect on his shot, then that's just sad, but I really doubt that's the case. I'd say it's a mixture of both but the addition of the 14 lbs of muscle gets the slight nod for his horrendous shooting in my opinion.
Hm, there was only two games on tv, so i wouldn't know which type of shots they were. I still think it's more of AI's presence, but i guess we can't tell unless we've watched the games.
Again, it was a loss that in a way is acceptable for a preseason game. The 76ers lost by three, but if you look beyond the actual score the 76ers played pretty good. Webber had a 21 and 12 night, and S. Hunter had 24 points as well. If Webber and HUnter can do anything close to that the 76ers will be improved by the time the season comes. The only thing now is they need to get healthy, I know some of the games messed might have been because of precautionary reasons, but this club still suffered some bad injuries early in the season.
