Good Comeback By Sixers, But It’s Iggy Rather Than Lou At The End

Man, these late games are rough on me sometimes considering I have to get up early and all. Joe, man-up! Ok, I am good now. I was a little worried about how the Blazers were going to come out and they came out on fire. They had their sell-out crowd behind them and with it being the first game of the year did not help either.

The Sixers got down as much as 13 points in the first half and 15 points in the second-half but they just would not simply lie down. Portland hung on though with 107-103 victory to open up the season. The Sixers are scrappy as hell. Here is some my thoughts on the game…

SIXERS

– Jrue Holiday struggled last night.  He just seemed out of rhythm all night long. He finished with 13 points but had 6 turnovers with only 2 assists. I won’t say Turner struggled but he was just ok last night. He finished with 10 points and 4 rebounds. He kind of stood around at times.

– Who was that guy last night? Spencer Hawes? The dude had a very solid game last night. He just missed a triple-double. He had 10 points 14 rebounds and 9 assists. He can pass the ball very well for a big-man. He showed some toughness as well.

– Sixers turned the ball over 20 times. Nine out of ten times when you turn the ball over that much you are not going to win. Last season the Sixers were one of the best teams taken care of the ball.

-Lou Williams was being “sweet” Lou last night. Man, when he gets going he can really score. Kind of reminds me of another little guy that use to play here at times. He was awesome last night.

-“Iggy” had a solid game last night. He actually shot the ball very well. He was 7-14 from the field. He played solid “D” as usual with 4 blocks last night. With that said we all know that he can not finish out games. Umm, why in the hell would he take that shot after Lou just made two huge buckets in a row? Feed the hot hand! Damn it!

BLAZERS

-LaMarcus Aldridge, he good. In the first-half the Blazers just kept running that pick and roll with him. It seemed to work every single time. They Sixers did a better job of guarding him in the second half though. You saw first hand what a low post presence looks like. Aldridge finished 25 points and 7 rebounds.

– Marcus Camby still has some game left. He was showing off his passing skills last night by playing a little high-low game with Aldridge. He still can make guys change their shots at the rim.

-Wallace might be the most annoying player in the league. He flops all over the place. He is always in the middle of a loose ball. He gets a lot of the “dirty” points. Doug Collins called him a ‘disruptor”. That is exactly what he was last night. Wallace finished with 21 points and 9 rebounds. Dude, I wanted to knock him out so bad.

-Man, they can really knock down the three-ball the Blazers. Every time the Sixers made run they would knocked down one. Matthews, Batum, and Crawford would throw the ball in the post to Aldridge and spot up right after that. They shot 9-19 47% from down town.

– The Rose Garden is a very tough place to play. They are loud from start to finish. Very impressive.

Some how some way the Sixers had a shot to tie this game up with ten seconds left and with 20 turnovers as I said earlier. Two things I learned last night, one is that Portland is a very good team. They have a good chance of doing some damage out in the West. They are a balanced team. The other is that the Sixers are still that scrappy team from last season.

They really did not play well at all last night and they still had chance to win this game against a good team on the road. Teams are going to need to play a full 48 minutes to beat them. I love that. By the way, Greg Oden has only played a total of 82 games in his career. Damn.

Here is the recap and the box score from the game.