Recap: 76ers 117, Cavs 97 (Or, this is the worst team in basketball)

2010-12-08 Off By admin

– Dear God, the horror. I don’t have much to say about this team tonight — not only was this yet another blowout loss, but Time Warner Cable has left me without internet for the last four days because of “scheduled maintenance,” which means I have to take a 20-minute walk to the library every time I want to write about the team or use my email. I am not in a good mood.

– The defense. Until the team plays defense, there’s not much to talk about. 44 points in the paint, 24 points from beyond the arc, 25 points from the line. That’s 93 points from high-percentage areas. Six teams give up less than 93 TOTAL points per game. Does anyone realize how awful this is? There’s no excuse for this. A 26/11 for Thad Young on 11-12 shooting? Really? REALLY? Dear lord. Shaq could guard the paint, but wasn’t much of an overall defender. Z had no chance on pick-and-rolls. LeBron didn’t try that hard on defense in 09-10 (to be clear, he was a legitimately great defender in 08-09.) Delonte’s spot in the rotation was never fully clear. Is the loss of those four players enough to excuse Byron Scott from taking a good defensive team and making it into an unbelievably atrocious one? That’s not a rhetorical question — I’m asking for opinions.

– Jamison and Boobie combined to go 6-9 from deep. Who’s looking for shooters at the deadline? It would be tough to trade Boobie, I know — we’ll discuss this at length later.

– Sessions — 11 points on 4-5 shooting. Blowout loss. Go figure. The good news is that there might not be many close losses or wins coming up, so Ramon will just look like he’s toiling on a bad team. Who wants an aggressive scoring guard at the deadline?

– IGUODALA WENT 3-12 AND THE SIXERS WON BY 20 POINTS.

– Like I said, I don’t have much more to say. This team is embarrassing itself on a nightly basis. The good news is that the Cavs have managed to win a third of their games up to this point. The bad news is that it looks like the team’s spirit is completely broken after a two-week “Yeah, who needs LeBron?” adrenaline surge. This team needs LeBron. It needs a lot of things. Heck, it might even need Mike Brown. Times are bleak. The early-season push means that the Cavs have a few weeks to right the ship and try to be anything other than a cellar team — if that doesn’t happen, it’s time to start working that trade machine and keeping tabs on draft prospects. By the way, the impending lockout will probably keep most good players from entering the 2011 draft. Have a great night, everyone.

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