Very impressed with the last 3 quarters of play. I love Jose, but he badly needs to work on his on ball defense. I would love to see Humphries play as well.

I still miss Garbajosa, but if Kapono keeps hitting shots and blowing on his fingers, I will tolerate Graham and Moon.

Ukic won’t play that solid very often. Great aggression going to the rim, but an NBA point needs to shoot. I hope the raps get solid play from solomon at some point, they will need it

If this is the Jermaine O’neal we get for 70 games then the raps will be fine and a joy to watch.

I’m glad they won. Aside from all this bullshit analysis, they just need the wins against phi, det, cle,

After a tough start, turn up the defense and stop the sixers:

Control their fast breaks, and make them play 1/2 court and shoot
from the outside, where they struggle to combine Iggy and Brand in their offense.

Worked to perfection with sixers 34.5%FG, 25%FG3.

Lots of work to do on blocking out still for rebounds, although 6 of Dalemberts ORB’s were put backs on his misses, in their 23 boards advantage.

Raptors defensive play negated the advantage sixers had in rebounds as
they only outshot Rap’s by 3.

Calderon made some big shots, including the 1st 2 for the game to get Rap’s started after an 0/10 start, and hit 5/9 while Miller only made 6/16 for 13 pts, the same as Jose. Only 7 assists for Jose as the ball went inside then out and Bosh/O’Neal had 8 between them.

And if Philly ever learns to shoot, look out. That team can rebound and then some. (And we need to work on that because it’ll kill us soon enough).

Decent, but not great, first game and I’ll take the win against a divisional opponent. At this point the glass is half-. I’ll fill in the blank in about 10 games or so.

The absolutely embarrassing rebounding effort aside, this was as good a first game as we could have asked for, considering the team we watched in the pre-season. If we ever get it through our heads that grabbing our man to box out doesn’t have any sexual overtones, maybe we can corral some of those long loose balls that the Sixers guards had fall into their lap.

I’m also planning to set the world record this season for number of times on and off the Joey bandwagon. Right now, we’re ON! His hustle started our turnaround in the second quarter, and I’ll take moderate contribution over zero contribution any day.

And the new jerseys…sick.

p.s. Does Andre Miller look like P.Diddy’s crackhead cousin to anyone else?

i have to admit, i was ready to throw the whole franchise under the bus 5 minutes in, but to their credit, they tightened their belts, and forced the 76ers to beat them from the perimeter, which they didn’t.

my only cause for concern was the rebounding situation. dalembert grabbed 17 like a beast. thought o’neal was supposed to do something about that? whatever, rebounding, for now, is still an issue, but at least defense looks to be tighter.

imagine if we got some production out of bargnani?