For the record, Sixers played winning defense
PHILADELPHIA — For the 59 longest days of his professional life, Brett Brown never blinked, never sweated, never complained. Basketball, he figured, would never be that cruel forever.
He had been involved with four NBA championship teams and was in the most recent pro basketball championship series, so even before his Sixers would begin an historic 26-game losing streak, he knew the rules. They were simple. Rebound. Defend in the paint. Challenge three-point shooters. Don’t miss any chance to run. Make free throws. Rebound some more. Repeat.
Do that often enough, he figured, and some night, some place, against some team not as prepared, there would be victory. Saturday was that night. And that’s why the Sixers are on a onegame winning streak.
“All along, we talked about, ‘Let’s bang out great days,’” Brown said. “They’ll add up.”
The Sixers didn’t as much as defeat the Pistons, 123-98, Saturday as they battered them, being physical on the defensive end, allowing nothing to come easy. That prevented good Detroit shots, invited some fortunate rebounds and made the running game alluring. By the end of the first quarter, they’d had an 11-point lead. By halftime, they’d accumulated 70 points. And by midway through the third quarter, when they inflated a 24-point lead, it was clear that their 26-game slide would be good only for a share of the NBA record with the Cleveland Cavaliers, not for the whole insulting thing.
“We’re trying to win every game,” Tony Wroten was saying before the game. “Just like tonight. We are trying to win.”
That’s what they’ve claimed, anyway. That’s what it looked like, at least in the open. They do arrive early for games, and will work into a sweat during early-evening shooting drills. Their game plans — the ones on the clubhouse whiteboards, visible to accredited visitors — appear comprehensive and useful. Their chatter, always positive, makes sense.
But too often since their last victory, Jan. 29 in Boston, the Sixers did not play like they’d intended to prevail. Instead, their interior defense would crumble, their perimeter defense would sag, their offense would stumble, their passion would vanish.
That’s why they’d lost so often and why they are 16-57. They’d played too much uninspired basketball, stepping out of the way when opponents invaded the paint, settling for ordinary shots, drooping in the fourth quarter.
The handy history of the Great 26-skidoo will be that the Sixers never had a chance, for their front office was willing to exchange responsible talent accumulation for the promise of improved draft position and salary cap benefits. Even in victory, Brown mentioned that Saturday, stressing the franchise’s transparency, never denying that the project may take up to five years to complete.
In many of those losses, there was that. Brown, yes, had been handed an inferior roster, and in that league, that’s lethal. Yet had the Sixers more frequently played as they did against Detroit, from the opening tip through the first oncourt postgame celebration since their last Wells Fargo Center victory, Jan. 15 against Charlotte, they would not have come within a game of a tragic professional stigma.
What they showed to a delighted crowd of 17,438 was that they had the ability — they are all over-compensated professionals, after all — to win games, even as the front office was prepared to be all-too-understanding of losses. And if they can win games, they should win games. They have nine left. No matter the potential draft benefits, they should be able to — no, they must be obligated to — win a few.
“Obviously, we want to win,” Brown said. “We want to win every time we go on the floor. I coach to win. Our players play to win. We are not deflecting any of that responsibility. But to suggest anything deeper or more sinister is just not right.”
No. Those were not the implications. The only thing suggested was that too often in this disaster of a season, the Sixers played uninspired defensive basketball. Saturday, they played hard at both ends and won. And as Brett Brown had to know, basketball would never be so cruel as to deny that.
To contact Jack McCaffery, email jmccaffery@delcotimes.com. Follow him on Twitter @JackMcCaffery