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| Somehow, Andre Iguodala made it his moment |
I screamed at the top of my lungs. I jumped up and down with my brother
so ferociously I almost turned my ankle. Tears poured down my face. I was in
complete shock and awe as the pounds and pounds of white confetti rained down
on the Wells Fargo Center faithful at the end of Game 6. Last night was my
first 76ers home playoff game since I witnessed Hedo Turkoglu’s game-winning
3-pointer in 2009. It was also the first 76ers playoff game I had been to
during a series they would go on to win since 2003. I remember Iverson’s 55
point performance in Game 1 of that series. Everything went right for the 76ers
against the Hornets in that series. Now, 9 years later, it seems like
everything somehow went right for 76ers in their First Round series vs the
Chicago Bulls.
It seemed to be a series of fate for the Sixers. After an awful second
half of the regular season, many things happened during the last week of the
regular season and in this series that just made it feel like a supernatural power-the
basketball gods if you will- was keeping a close and helpful eye on this Sixers
club. There were so many fortunate events and moments that happened to Sixers
from the last week of the regular season until last night it’s hard to keep
track. But now, I’m going to do exactly that for you. Without further ado, I
proudly and excitedly present to you the 2011-2012 Sixers’ Series of Fortunate
Events!
Knick’s winning ways
Mike
D’antoni’s resignation as head coach of the New York Knicks was a blessing in
disguise for the Sixers. Mike Woodson taking over the Knicks and improving that
team enough to leapfrog over the Sixers in the conference standings set up a
perfect playoff matchup for the Sixers. And with that…
Evan Turner’s bold statement
When I heard
Evan Turner publicly said he wanted to play the Bulls over the Heat, I could
sense something awesome was brewing. I didn’t know how awesome but I knew there
would be some hostility from the Chicago home crowd, I knew this series would
be physical and I knew the Sixers would have a great chance to at least take
the series to 6 games. But then something even more fortunate happened…
Bulls’ injuries
We all know
what happened. When Derrick Rose got hurt, I was watching the end of that Game
1 in a hotel room when technically wasn’t even allowed to be watching TV. I
remember looking at the score and the clock, and the play before THE injury, I
leaned over to my friend Josh and said “Why the hell is Rose still in this
game? He’s already injured enough”. Then… POP. After Rose tore his ACL, there
was no doubt in my mind the Sixers would win this series. But then, the
basketball gods smiled down on the Sixers again, and granted them a Joakim Noah
injury like the Sandman granted the guy in the Kia Optima commercial a free lap
around a race car track with an extremely attractive woman. After the second
Bulls injury, the Sixers couldn’t possibly have gotten any luckier and more
fortunate later in the series right…?
Winning close games
In the
regular season, the Sixers were a horrific… HORRIFIC in close games. This was
mostly because of their stagnant offense late in games, but we’ll get to that
later. In games decided by 5 points or less, the Sixers were an embarrassing
3-10 in the regular season. In this series vs the Bulls, the Sixers won 2 games
by 5 points or less and 1 by 7! How was that even possible considering how
their offense was still stagnant and their rebounding was still awful?? After
they won Game 4 last Friday night, I started catching on that many peculiar things
were happening in this series. Something just wasn’t normal. And then, Game 6
happened…
Game 6
Honestly, the Sixers had NO business winning Game 6 whatsoever. They
squandered a 3rd Quarter lead. They got out-rebounded by 23. They
were -10 in points in the paint AND they only shot 39.7% from the field over
the entire game. And every single thing that was expected really didn’t happen
at all. First, after only scoring 26 points in the first half in Game 5, the
Sixers unexpectedly shot 50% and scored 48 points in the first half last night.
Fast forward to the 4th
Quarter, the Sixers of course slowed down their offense for the first 10
minutes of the quarter and ran every awful possession through Lou Williams.
Almost every trip up the floor resulted in either a turnover or a fade-away
jumper from 18 feet. Collins yet again played a terrible lineup throughout most
of the 4th as well. Coming out of the 3-minute TV timeout, Collins
put in a crunch-time lineup of Brand-Young-Iguodala-Williams-Holiday against Aschik-Gibson-Deng-Hamilton-Watson.
I screamed and hollered at Collins to put in more height. On the court from the
3:34-minute mark until about the 2-minute mark the Sixers got gruesomely
out-rebounded. Our tallest player that was on the court, Elton Brand, is a
measely 6’8”. The Bulls had 3 players in Aschik, Gibson and Deng that were all
taller than our tallest player. Of course, the sellout crowd at the Wells Fargo
Center witnessed a sequence where the Bulls collected 4 straight offensive
rebounds and ran the shot clock all-the way down before getting another shot
off. At that point, down 76-73 with 2:02 left and the entire team mentally
exhausted, how the hell could the Sixers win?
Then,
every unthinkable, improbable and extremely fortunate thing that could’ve
happened to the Sixers happened. Coach Collins amazingly and shockingly made
the correct lineup moves and brought Spencer Hawes and Turner back in the game
for Brand and Williams. The team started rebounding and they finally looked to
attack the basket: something they very rarely do. Next, the hero that nobody is
talking about, Thad Young made an incredible play. After driving the basket and
attempting put-backs that immediately got swatted by Aschik and Gibson all game,
Thad made an incredibly strong move to the basket and gracefully rolled the
ball off his fingers easily into the net. How the hell was that possible after
he got denied on every other attempt at the rim all game?? The following play,
CJ Watson received the Bulls inbound pass and pushed the ball into the
frontcourt. Holiday attempted to foul, but for some reason, the ref swallowed
the whistle. And then, for some other unknown reason, Watson didn’t pull the
ball out with 9 seconds left to burn clock after beating Holiday. The usually-slick
veteran drove to the basket and dumped the ball off to one of the 5 worst foul
shooters out of the 450 employed players in the NBA, Aschik. As the stadium
practically swayed from the screaming and stomping of the fans, he missed both
at the line leaving the door for the most improbable of all things: Andre
Iguodala. He didn’t get the rebound and act clueless. For the only 5 seconds of
his career that he has done so, he played like a stone-cold superstar who
deserves $13 million a year. He actually attacked the basket instead of a)
passing b) shooting a pull up jumper or c)stumbling and turning the ball over. In
the regular season, 82games.com states that in the crunch-time (5 minutes left
and no team winning by more than 5) of regulation and over-time games, Iguodala
shot 35% from the line. But last night, he didn’t just make both… he drilled
them. The last 2.2 seconds were a blur. Even though Watson’s shot was sooooo
close and could’ve been called a foul, everyone in that building knew it wasn’t
going in. The phate was just waaay to much in the Sixers favor. Everything that
could’ve went wrong, did in the first 10 minutes of the 4th. But,
then everything that could’ve went right miraculously did in the final 2
minutes. The basketball gods didn’t stop when the scoreboard showed 0:00 for
the Sixers last night either. They forced the Celtics to fight and claw for an
emotional win following the Sixers victory as well. Now, both teams have to
immediately move on to the next round and the Sixers are extremely fortunate
that the Celts are in their same position. Even though I don’t quite understand
how they won, I am so extremely thankful and ecstatic that they did. THANK YOU
BASKETBALL GODS!
Now, I’ve ripped
Iguodala every day of his contract. Look, he’s a solid NBA player, but if I was
building an NBA team, in hopes of winning a championship, he would be my number
1 choice for a championship team’s 3rd
best player to fill a defensive and energy roll but definitely not my 1st
best. Imagine him putting up the kind of numbers he did this season but only
making $7 mil a year for the Lakers. That’s an incredible value! I’m giving him
credit for making the biggest free throws of his entire life and for today,
Philly is his city. However, come tomorrow, it’s time to face the Celtics and I
guarantee you his haters (including me) will be back out again. But for the
next 24 hours, let’s soak up this win and enjoy!
