Friday Night Ballin': Sixers Play Point Guard What-If Against Jazz

Fresh off another win against the Nets (in which, in a much more profound sense, both teams were losers, as were the fans who watched), the Sixers look to move back above .500 tonight at home against the Utah Jazz. Since ex-Philly sharpshooter and current Utah Mormom heartthrob Kyle Korver is OOC with a bum left knee, the storyline of the evening will have to be the play of Utah rookie point guard Eric Maynor, who will be moved to the Jazz starting lineup tonight in place of star ball-handler Deron Williams, excused by the team for personal reasons.

Maynor, Sixers devotees may recall, was one of two point guards that the team appeared to be heavily considering taking in the draft last year, before Jrue Holiday ended up falling to them. The other, Denver's Ty Lawson, has already made us look a little stupid with his stellar play out west, averaging about ten points and three assists a game as a backup to Chauncey Billups. Maynor has been quieter so far, playing only about five minutes and averaging only about two points a game. Tonight, however, he will certainly get his chance to prove to the Sixers why they should have taken a chance on the VCU point man.

Our boy Jrue, by the way, had something of a rough go of it against the Nets on Wednesday. You never hear about the Damaja without hearing about his rawness and his upside, and while his stellar work against Phoenix earlier in the week was definitely all upside, his floundering against New Jersey was quite clearly all rawness. He rimmed a couple threes, made some poor ball-distributing decisions, and lost his backup minutes in the second half to Royal Ivey. It'll be interesting to see who Jordan uses tonight, as well as to see how he continues to balance the Brand/Speights situation, after another strong game from Marreese and a stunningly bad, season-worst 0-FG performance from Elton on Wednesday.

7:00 tip from the Wach. The connection between the NBA and jazz music has always been overrated anyway.

Comments

[MG]

Brutal and boring. Left this game early in the 4th quarter tonight with 8 minutes to play when it was apparent the Sixers were content to get waxed on their home court with a half-hearted effort against a team missing their best player.

Few observations:

- Iggy isn't a 2. He just can't shoot from the outside consistently enough to be 2 or create his own shot by driving to the hole. Because of the completely inept background the Sixers have though, Iggy is forced into this role.

- Watching this team try to run Eddie Jordan's offense is brutal. Lou has actually played better at PG than I thought he would but he was brutal tonight with his decisions especially in the half-court set. It is indefensible though that this so consistently falls to execute even the basic things needed to make Jordan's offense work included being in the proper place to set a pick and make the needed cuts.

- Jordan needs to pick and settle on who he is using off the bench and what their role should be. The talent on the bench is thin but it doesn't help that Jordan can't pick his 9-man rotation and stick with it to some degree. NBA roster has 12 players but the last 3 players are generally cheerleaders most nights.

- Hustle on the defensive end is generally lacking. Sixers did a better job on the glass tonight on the defensive end but the amount of wide-open looks the Jazz was largely a lack of hustle. Rotaton over to the weak-side was really poor and Williams is just as poor an all-around defensive player he has was 2 years ago.

- Dalembert is pathetic. No difference on the defensive end tonight with the useful half-hearted intensity and share of stupid fouls. He got booed tonight sporadically and rightly so. Sixers' fans have to watch this loser get paid $12M+ to pout about largely imaginary slights and put forth an a questionable work ethic just about every night. There hasn't been an athlete I despised as much in a Philly uniform in recent memory. Even didn't dislike Eaton this much.

- Only you need to know about this game was these stats: 32-12 for the Jazz vs. 20-17 for the Sixers.

Maybe this team settles down a bit as it gets more experienced with Jordan's system and Jordan figures out what he has and how to use them but until then it is hard to see this team beating even a decent team especially on the road.

[Warren]

Maynor's double double would have looked real nice in a Sixers uniform.