Sixers @ Hornets (11/20/15)

We must pull ahead of the median line! To be average is to be ordinary, and we must strive for 1 game above .500!!!! I watched. This is what I saw.

• Starters: New starting lineup tonight. Batum, Walker, Lin, Williams, Jefferson start the game, as Zeller and Hairston were out for tonight. Missing two players obviously dips into the Hornets depth a bit, but they held up just fine, as Brian Roberts played the backup point guard when both Lin and Kemba were out.
• Big Al: He was showing the veteran savvy tonight. He put Nerlens Noel and Jahlil Okafor in the spin cycle, the pump fake cycle, and every other kind of post move cycle in the first quarter. He finished that quarter with 14 points on 8 shots, and ended the game with an efficient 26 points, 10 boards, and 5 blocks.
• Challenge: Could the Hornets put the fallen team down? The Hornets were up big at half, leading 62-41, but could they keep up a decent amount of pressure when the game felt over? The answer was...kind of. Philadelphia closed to 11 in the third, ending up down 15 at the end of that period. They got the lead down around double digits several times in the 4th, but the Sixers just seem incapable of making several smart plays in a row on both ends of the floor. Silly fouls, reckless drives, poor passing...all of these things helped the Hornets keep this game out of reach. This should be a lesson to the team. Playing well for a full 48 minutes is an achievable goal.
• The Process: The 76’ers are dreadful. They are abysmal. I would not question Brett Brown’s commitment to this team, but I would question the passion that his professionally paid players display on the defensive end of the floor. Not every possession was awful, of course. However, the negatives far outweigh the positives for this team right now. I have been on the “tank and rebuild” train, but the organization must be getting impatient.
• Free Throw Shooting: A much different story that the depressing percentages that they had been shooting the last few games. Tonight, the Hornets were 21-22 from the foul line, showing a fantastic level of concentration for the freebies.
• Aaron Harrison made his first appearance for the Hornets this season, and played about 2.5 minutes. If he has a future with the team, it is a year or more removed, but he is getting tons of valuable practice and skill development time with the staff this season.

Going one game above .500 is great, but that means the team is only a single loss away from being a .500 team again! I am not sure how much teams learn from beating terrible teams, but hopefully they do learn that they can dominate certain inferior opponents. Love this team right now, and I hope to see them improve on the 7-6 record.