<div align="center"> @ <font color=""DarkRed"">Philadelphia 76ers (8-7)</font> <font color=""green"">Boston Celtics (5-8)</font> Time: Wednesday, Nov. 30, 7:30pm ET TV: NBALP, CSN <font color="DarkRed">Philadelphia 76ers</font> <font size=""1""><font color=""DarkRed"">PG</font>- Allen Iverson <font color=""DarkRed"">SG</font>- Andre Iguodala <font color=""DarkRed"">SF</font>-Kyle Korver <font color=""DarkRed"">PF</font>- Chris Webber <font color=""DarkRed"">C</font>- Samuel Dalembert</font> <font size=""1"">Coach: Maurice Cheeks</font> ____________________________ <font color=""green"">Boston Celtics</font> <font size=""1""><font color=""green"">PG</font>- Delonte West <font color=""green"">SG</font>-Ricky Davis <font color=""green"">SF</font>-Paul Pierce <font color=""green"">PF</font>- Raef Lafrentz <font color=""green"">C</font>- Kendrick Perkrins</font> <font size=""1"">Coach: Doc Rivers</font> </div> Keys to the Game <ul><font color="DarkRed">Dictate the tempo</font> The 76ers are coming off a home win against a struggling Portland Trailblazers team. Tonight?s game will be the 76ers? second game in two nights. And with that being said the Celtics may have an advantage because the 76ers may be feeling some fatigue from their game last night. So I think it is critical for the 76ers to control the glass and when they do they should probably slow down the tempo some. It is also important for them to get good shots, if your bricking shots and the opposition is rebounding the ball, which gives transition opportunities for that team and that would be out of the Sixers favor since Boston has had a days rest while the Sixers just came off a game. If the 76ers do in fact slow down the pace, I think they can beat Boston playing half court basketball. The 76ers aren?t really known for this, but anytime you have Webber on your team anything is liable to happen in the half court. All the important factors for this team seem to mesh, in this game they must execute and play sharp on offense.[/list] <ul><font color="DarkRed">Create Turnovers</font> This Celtics team has not taken care of the ball so far this season. They are giving up 17 turnovers, and the 76ers are a team that definitely has the ability to create lots of turnovers, they lead the league in that causing the most last year. But can the 76ers play like they did last year? This year Philadelphia is more offensive minded and it is paying off, as they are the leagues highest scoring team. When the 76ers create turnovers, it just leads to easier bucket and it often frustrates opponents. The 76er showcased this against Kobe and the Lakers this season, and they also did it to Paul Pierce last year. When asked about how the 76ers, in particular Andre Iguodala played him last year, Pierce responded ?no comment?. It is mighty hard to score on an average 103 points a game, but it is even harder to win games when your giving up an average of 105. Defense in general is really important every game for the 76ers, until they show an improvement. [/list] <ul><font color="DarkRed">Will the 76ers bench step it up?</font> I think whose bench steps up in this game may be a pretty significant factor. Whenever you are coming off a game and are ready to play a consecutive game, you would hope that the guys who don?t play as much give you a lift for the second game. With that being said, the 76ers need their bench to come in and provide an impact to this game. Look for guys like Salmons, Hunter, and Nailion to get some early minutes then what they normally would and hopefully they make the best of them. Nailion who hasn?t been playing as much with the return of Dalembert, will probably and honestly, hopefully will get some more minutes..[/list] <div align="center"></div> I won't mind if the 76ers struggle on offense, becaue when you are the highest scoring team in the league your offense will come around eventually. But as long as the 76ers play decent on defense they can win a lot of games. Like I said, it is very hard to win giving up 105 a game and this team is lucky to be a game over 500. If they come out in a slow pace, and play good defense this game is in their favor for a W. I think this will be close, last season Philly played Boston well, hopefully they can do the same this year agiainst their Atlantic Division foes. Also remember that division games are more significant then non division games so it is important for the 76ers to win these. I'm taking Philly by 5.
Nice preview B. With two minutes to go to halftime, the Celtics are up by five points. We had the lead before but the Celtics just kept fighting and knocked us off. So far we aren't getting enough from Salmons or Hunter but Iverson, Webber, and the rest of the guys are doing just fine. Dalembert a bright spot right now with ten minutes, six points, five rebounds, and two blocks. Can't wait to see how he much he improves those numbers as the season goes on. Good luck to Philadelphia in the next half.
Damn. 110-103. We lost, I didn't really follow this game too much and stopped "really following" at halftime. I expect you guys to fill me in on this. I do know that Iverson had a big scoring game and Webber played pretty well too. I assume that the rest of the guys contributed not enough. Well, hopefully we'll rebound the next game.
Another hard loss, we gotta learn how to close games and grab rebounds. Dalembert can't do it all himself. Hunter needs more than 3 boards a game. It seems like we're still a big mean backup PF away from reaching our potential. Iggy needs to take some more shots tho, and create more. Nice game by Sammy tho, 13 boards and 5 blocks, with Iverson and Webber combining for 67, even tho they shot bad.
Rebounding is the main reason we lost. We got beat on the boards, AGAIN. There certainly were some questionable calls in the fourth, but we got our fair share of questionable calls as well throughout the game. Our bench was horrible tonight. They were outscored 23-9, with Ollie scoring 5 and Salmons adding 4. Not to mention Iggy and Salmons being in foul trouble for most of the first half. That's something we need to address, another backup SF or something, because we can't rely on an Ollie, Iverson and Korver trio if both Iggy and Salmons get in foul trouble.
Kendrick Perkrins killed us his previous career highs before this game where 9 and 13 tonight he had 12 points and 19 rebounds. It was embarrassing and we also allowed Ricky Davis to have a great shooting night. This team has serious issues boxing out. We won’t go far in the playoffs playing like this.
This team has a different indentity every night, and you never know which Sixers will show up. They got pounded on the boards and they gave up 19 rebounds to Kendrick Perkins, which is pretty sad, eight of them were offensive and that is even worse. This is an example of inconsistency at its best, but I do not understand why Mo Cheeks is not even utilizing his bench. He has not played Nailion since Dalembert has been back, and in this game he only gave Steven Hunter 10 minutes of playing time. The 76ers payed Hunter good money for a reason, and it does the organization no good to let him rot on the bench. Especially, when your team is getting killed on the glass. Why not put your 7 foot center in coach? I guess every game like this will be a learning process for the 76ers, and they are going to have to get better in nearly everything esle besides offense. I'm not playing the blame game but maybe Coach Cheeks needs to get this team to be more defensive oriented.
Cheeks has been trying to get this team to be more of a defensive minded team, but he can only do so much. Ultimately it is up to the players to perform out there on the court, and play solid team defense. Cheeks can only do so much teaching, but at the end of the day the responsibility lies with the players to go out and do what Cheeks taught them to do. The biggest thing we need to do is rebound consistently, because we continually get burned by second-chance points.
