Pretty Easy After All: Sixers Hold Hornets to Franchise Scoring Low in Grind-Out Win

The tone could've been very negative here, considering that the Sixers
only scored 77 points tonight after struggling mightily to put ball in
basket in their first three games. But remarkably, the Sixers were the
far superior of the two offenses on display at New Orleans Arena
tonight, as they held the injury-ridden (even by Sixers standards)
Hornets to an incredible 62 points for the game—including only 25 total
in the second half—the lowest single-game point total in New Orleans
Hornets franchise history, and the lowest allowed by the Sixers in over
25 years. That's gooooood defense.

This game was uncomfortably
close for the first two quarters, with the Hornets even leading by one
at the half. But the Sixers clamped down on the Hornets in a big way in
the third quarter, with Jrue Holiday keying the effort by locking up New
Orleans PG Greivis Vasquez, simply refusing to allow Vasquez to turn
the corner on him and get into the lane, slowing their offense to a
crawl in the process. Lavoy Allen and Spencer Hawes also had some
surprisingly nice moments as help defenders, with Hawes notching three
blocks for his efforts. It was pretty fun to watch.

Philly's
performance on the other end certainly wasn't pretty—pretty just doesn't
seem to be a word we're going to use often with the Sixers offense this
year, at least until the team gets healthy—but it was effective enough,
again implemented by Jrue Holiday. Holiday had seven turnovers for the
game, six in the first half, but that's forgivable, considering he
basically was creating the team's offense on every possession—he ended
with 14 points and 12 assists, his second double-double of the season.

Perhaps
more importantly, Evan Turner finally got going (by this game's
standards, anyway), matching his previous season total of seven field
goals for 14 points, notching eight boards and three assists as well.
Lavoy Allen and Spencer Hawes also scored well, combining for 24 points
on 12-18 shooting, while Spence struggled a little to find the range but
still ended with 11 and six off the bench.

If you're noticing
that a number of the players mentioned in this game scored exactly twice
as many points as they had field goals made, there's a reason for
that—the team was terrible shooting the three (4-22 from deep) and shot a
miserable five free throws, converting on three of them. That's
certainly no stable recipe for offensive efficiency, and the three-point
shooting in particular you'd think has to get better, as a purported
strength of this team—Jason Richardson being out doesn't help, nor does
Dorell Wright and Nick Young combining for 2-12 from deep. And really,
Nick Young has just been historically bad for this team through four
games—he had a PER of 1.7 (10.0 is like the Mendoza Line) before this
game, and then he went 1-7 with one assist and one turnover.

Obviously
still a whole lot of issues with this team, and some that aren't going
away anytime soon. But after giving up triple digits to the Knicks in
consecutive games, holding the Hornets to 62 and getting a win on the
road to move back to .500 is enough for tonight. Next up: An Eastern
Semis rematch in Boston, where the Celtics needed overtime to beat the
lowly Wizards tonight, moving to 2-2 for the season (with both their
wins against Washington). Which struggling Eastern power will prevail?
Lavoy Allen likes our chances.