Do you remember how pathetic our tenth win was last season? It came on April 5 with five games to go in the season, interrupting a streak of 13 losses in a row, and it came at home against the New Orleans Pelicans -- a lottery-bound team closing the season without the overwhelming majority of their good players, including Ryan Anderson, Jrue Holiday and Anthony Davis. They started such luminaries as Toney Douglas, Luke Babbitt and our old friend Tim Frazier, and they still led for much of the first half. The Sixers won 107-93, and went 0-for the rest of the season, avoiding historical impotence by just the narrowest of margins.
This year, we're a little ahead of that schedule. The 10th W of the season came yesterday afternoon -- nearly three months earlier -- against the Nets in Brooklyn, one of two (two!!) Eastern Conference teams currently with a worse winning percentage than these Philadelphia 76ers. Bad as these Nets are, though, they're still good enough to make us have to earn the victory -- which the Sixers did, again trailing for most of the first half before coming back to secure a decently decisive 105-95 victory.
Joel had 20 -- his sixth straight game with at least that many -- Nik bounced back with 15 on 4-7 shooting, and Robert Covington was so handsy on D that he probably reflexively swatted the iPhone out of Sean Kilpatrick's hands on their way out of the arena. The win was Philly's third in four tries -- one Al Horford triple away from it being four out of four -- and the momentum is serious enough that Joel is already starting to talk playoffs. (The Sixers are currently in 13th, 7.5 games out of the 8th spot).
We'll talk about how realistic that goal is another time, but the fact that it's January and vibes are still that good is a tribute to how the Sixers -- led of course by The Process himself -- have turned things around. Hell, the Sons of Sam are only four games behind the Sacramento Kings in the standings, meaning that #Pickswap watch is definitely in full effect. Next up: Knicks at home on Wednesday, kicking off a stretch of 12 games in 20 days that should really show where these Sixers currently stand in the NBA landscape. In the meantime, tell Alexis Ajinca we say what's up.