January 27, 2016
Through three quarters, we had ourselves a ballgame in Auburn Hills, Michigan. The Philadelphia 76ers held a 79-74 lead over the Detroit Pistons… and more importantly, they were looking good and making plays. Hollis Thompson was knocking down threes, T.J. McConnell was moving the ball, while Nerlens Noel and Jerami Grant were menaces at the rim.
And then in the final 12 minutes, the wheels completely fell off. The Pistons started to assert themselves and the Sixers appeared every bit like a shorthanded team traveling on a back-to-back. Detroit outscored the Sixers 36-18 in the final frame and en route to a 110-97 victory.
All in all, it was a decent effort.
“I think that we did a good job of gutting out most of the game,” Brett Brown told reporters afterward. “We played three games in four nights. We said it at the start, it’s life in the NBA. It’s good for our young guys to figure all that out and I think they did.”
Jahlil Okafor didn’t make the trip due to an illness so we got our second straight look at #NerlensAtTheFive. More specifically, we saw two teams employ very similar styles of offense against each other: Spread pick-and-roll, one high 1-5 ball screen surrounded by shooters spotting up around the arc.
On both ends of the floor, it just felt like that there was much more space than we normally see in most Sixers games.
The Pistons employ this strategy every night with Andre Drummond, and they eventually won out. Drummond finished with 25 points and 18 rebounds, including a borderline stunning 7-12 night at the line. He does that often because he’s a monster. The Sixers’ man in the middle more than held his own, though.
Noel finished with 20 points (9-11 FG) and seven boards, while Grant poured in a career-high 21 points. The Sixers’ starting frontcourt largely took advantage of all that space.
“Both of those two were elite tonight a lot of the game, athletically especially,” Brown said.
They did have trouble keeping the Pistons off the offensive glass, though. Drummond finished with nine rebounds and Detroit rebounded 40 percent of their misses. That’s not going to get it done.
The rest of the team struggled against a Top-10 defense. Possibly dealing with fatigue (and definitely dealing with the towering presence of Drummond), Ish Smith didn’t have a good night finishing at the rim (6-18 FG, 6 turnovers).
“I think that our offense at times in that first half let us down,” Brown said. “I felt like we could have had a greater margin [at halftime].”
• The Sixers’ starting frontcourt will get the chance to compete in the completely unwatchable Rising Stars game. There is more defense played in my normal pick-up games:
Here are the rosters for the Rising Stars rookie/sophomore game, via the NBA: pic.twitter.com/bCou6oAHHh
— Adi Joseph (@AdiJoseph) January 27, 2016
Brown said experience of going to All-Star Weekend for Noel and Okafor is special and a great learning experience
— Bob Cooney (@BobCooney76) January 27, 2016
I’m not so sure about that, Brett. But hey, they’ll get to have some fun.
Follow Rich on Twitter: @rich_hofmann
