Not only was this their third win in a row, but they were all on the road, a place they’ve struggled in all throughout the season. In fact, before this three game winning streak, they were an atrocious 1-13 when playing outside the Wells Fargo Center, a pitiful record. While none of these three most recent wins are against very good teams, it’s nice to see the Sixers actually winning considering right before it they got crushed by the league worst Bucks. Their defense certainly hasn’t improved much, but their offense has started to explode as they have scored over 110 points in all three of their last games.
As usual, Thad Young and Evan Turner led the way in scoring, picking up 28 and 24 respectively. Young managed to add on 7 rebounds, 4 assists, and a whopping 6 steals while Turner had a double-double, grabbing 10 rebounds. He also had 6 assists on the night, a team high. These two had to pick up the slack from Michael Carter-Williams, who had one of his more forgettable games. He had a little bit of everything on the stat sheet, including a surprising 3 blocks, but he couldn’t get his shot to fall and only finished with 7 points. Hollis Thompson and Spencer Hawes were the other starters, although as usual, Thompson didn’t play much, and Hawes had a lot of foul trouble and fouled out in only 17 minutes.
Lavoy Allen and Tony Wroten played very well off the bench, scoring points when they needed them. Allen was very efficient, scoring 10 points on 5/7 shooting in only 15 minutes. Wroten played most of the game at shooting guard and got to the line for 13 foul shots. He scored 21 points himself. Also, the Sixers only committed 12 turnovers as compared to the 22 that the Kings had.
If the Sixers want to win over quality teams though and become a possible playoff contender, they have to greatly improve their defense. They are last in the league in PPG against as a team, giving up over 100 a game. I know they weren’t even thinking about making the playoffs going into this season, but the Eastern Conference is so bad that teams with losing records will definitely make it, and this could allow the Sixers to sneak in. They face the Trail Blazers tomorrow night in their last game of their road trip.
