Sixers end trip with a thud vs. Spurs
SAN ANTONIO — When a man is down, you give him your hand. So Doug Collins did. The problem was he didn’t have enough hands for everybody on the roster.
The 76ers coach, in the second quarter Saturday night, bent at the waist and offered Thad Young his right hand after Young had slid into his team’s bench. Young was diving for a loose ball he couldn’t track down.
The ball got away from Young, much like wins on this roadtrip eluded the Sixers. A 109-86 loss to San Antonio put the wraps on a season-long eight-game roadtrip, on which they went 2-6.
Spencer Hawes had 22 points and six rebounds, before leaving the game in the fourth quarter with a cut above his left eye. And Jrue Holiday nearly had his second tripledouble of the trip, with 11 points, eight boards and eight assists.
Against the Southwest Divisionleading Spurs, the Sixers (15-20) looked as though they had nothing left to give. They were slow getting to long rebounds, slow to loose balls and slow to cover space behind them … among other things.
Having played through a tumultuous trip – one that Collins called “brutal” in a pregame interview – will do that to a team. The Sixers had eight games in 12 days, winning only two of them. There were chances to win at least two more. Saturday’s at AT&T Center wasn’t one of them.
How bad did it get for the Sixers in the early going against the Spurs? Manu Ginobili crossed over an outof-position Kwame Brown 16 feet from the basket in the first quarter, then threw down a thunderous lefthanded slam without the slightest bit of defensive resistance.
Along the way, the Sixers lost for the 14th time in 19 games in heading home for Tuesday’s visit from Brooklyn at the Wells Fargo Center – the first game in Philly for Collins’ crew in 16 days.
If there’s one saving grace for the downtrodden Sixers, it’s that 13 of their next 15 contests are at home. But even wins at home have been hard to come by, with the Sixers owning a 9-7 record there.
Still, it’s a better option than what awaited them in San Antonio.
The Spurs staked a double-digit lead in the opening 12 minutes, a cozy-enough advantage to afford San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich the luxury of sitting Tim Duncan for eight minutes at the start of the second quarter.
The door was slightly ajar for the Sixers, but they couldn’t burst through. Nick Young knocked down a pair of free throws to cut the Sixers’ deficit to 39-32, before Duncan returned to the floor. That was as close as they got to reclaiming a lead they held only once, when Thad Young made the game’s first basket.
Speaking of Young, his neverstalling motor was on display in the second quarter, while trying in vain to reach an outlet pass from Hawes. Young took a tumble, then took Collins’ hand.
Trailing San Antonio, 54-42, at halftime, the Sixers’ deficit only grew from there. Inside a 70-second span, the Spurs exposed the Sixers’ obvious fatigue with a pair of uncontested third-quarter buckets.
Take Tony Parker’s play with 3:40 to go in the third. Parker, after colliding with Thad Young near the foul line, recovered and dribbled around Young to toss in a crafty scoop shot. Young couldn’t cover the space behind him, and none of his teammates had his back in enough time to stop Parker.
Then, with 2:30 to go in the period, Ginobili’s patience payed off for the Spurs. He delayed delivering a crisp pass to Matt Bonner on the low block, after he had completed a backdoor cut. No Sixer was within four feet of Bonner, when he knocked down his layup to give the Spurs a 76-57 advantage.
By the first few minutes of the fourth, Collins had called off his starters in favor of a reserve-heavy lineup. He and the Sixers had conceded another defeat.