As I sat and watched from press row at tonight’s Sixers home opener against the Nets, I couldn’t help but wonder: who will this team be able to count on besides Andre Iguodala in terms of a game-by-game basis? I don’t have many answers to that question.
The Sixers are a team overloaded with swing men and have few offensive options when it comes to their frontcourt. Thus, you hear the term perimeter team thrown around a good deal. And that’s fine. They are a perimeter team with a plethora of players who you can cluster around the three point arc. Unfortunately, it’s tough to be a perimeter team when you don’t knock down shots. The Sixers will get production from Iguodala (though tonight he only shot the ball ten times and finished with 16 points) and Kyle Korver from the outside. After that, there’s a significant dropoff. Philadelphia shot 3-for-15 from beyond the arc tonight (two of those three came from Korver and the other from Iguodala). Someone else needs to step up.
Still, …
Coming into Saturday night’s game against Carolina, Philadelphia’s Simon Gagne had said that the Hurricanes would serve as Philadelphia’s first true test of the season. The early season exam of two division leaders would tell you if head coach John Stevens’ team was indeed for real.
Guess what? The Flyers passed. Philadelphia came from behind and squeezed out a 3-2 overtime win capped off by Gagne’s game winning goal just 48 seconds into the extra period.
The win for the Flyers (6-1) marked their fifth consecutive this season. It’s the first time Philadelphia has picked up five straight victories since the ’05-’06 campaign. You can also add four home wins in a row to the Flyers resume.
“We want to be a tough team to play against at home”, Gagne said. ”Last year overall was pretty much all negative. We were an easy team to beat at home but now I think we want to send a message to teams that when they come in here, it’s going to be difficult to get those two points.”
Philadelphia jumped out to a 1-0 lead when …
I think it’s safe to say you probably cringed as much as I did when you heard Brian Westbrook wasn’t going to play in Sunday Night’s Eagles-Giants game. The reaction was probably something similar to the feeling you get when you watch the beginning of a bad Kevin Costner non-baseball movie: It’s going to be a long night. Philly fans were in for one and it certainly was just that for the Eagles.
Few teams in the NFL can boast a running back that plays with the flare that a guy like Westbrook does. He runs with a certain grace and makes plays that 95% of backs his size normally wouldn’t make. I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. “B-West” has 19 catches and 51 carries in 2007. That’s 25 percent of the receptions and almost 53 percent of the carries. Westbrook is the team’s workhorse but you already know that. The problem is when he doesn’t play that means the Eagles need to find a new staple to their offense if you …
