January 18, 2016
Who knew beforehand that an MLK Day matinee at The Garden between the Philadelphia 76ers and New York Knicks would capture the hearts of League Pass diehards around the country? Not I.
Well, it did, and the Knicks ended up prevailing 119-113 in two overtimes.
“It’s a cruel loss,” Brett Brown told reporters after the game. “There is no doubt about that.”
This game was both very entertaining and pretty weird. For example, take Ish Smith. We noted his high fourth-quarter usage last week, and he upped the ante at Madison Square Garden. Smith finished a wildly inefficient 8-28 from the field for his 16 points, which put him on quite a list:
Ish Smith has 16 points on 28 FGA, joins truly amazing list of those who have scored so few points on so many shots. https://t.co/DOtWy0dq7L
— Tom Haberstroh (@tomhaberstroh) January 18, 2016
What’s crazy is that, given the game’s context, you can easily make the case that Smith played well. He also dished out 16 assists (to only four turnovers), grabbed seven boards, and came up with two steals. And with the lineup that Brett Brown leaned on down the stretch, the Knicks were forcing Smith (the only shot-creator on the floor) to beat them. He didn’t have many other options.
After a terrible third quarter that saw a five-point halftime deficit swell all the way 18 at one point, the Sixers went on a major comeback. The story of Monday’s game (and something that I feel deserves its own post) was Brown’s usage of Jahlil Okafor.
Okafor was likely the Sixers’ best player through three quarters. He had 20 points (on 10-17 shooting), 7 rebounds, 2 blocks, and 2 steals. Yet the Sixers made a major run when Brown went small and moved Nerlens Noel over to the 5. Brown stuck with the small-ball lineup, and Okafor didn’t play the final 26 minutes and 22 seconds of game-time. Again, I feel that this subplot deserves its own post.
“You looked on the floor, and Ish and Nerlens had a thing going,” Brown told reporters. “We pick-and-rolled them, we got lobs, Ish made passes, we sprinkled shooters around them.”
That smaller lineup — Primarily, it went Smith-Isaiah Canaan-Hollis Thompson-Robert Covington-Noel — got the Sixers a three-point lead with 13 seconds left in regulation. That is when Noel, who along with Covington played excellent defense against a hobbled Carmelo Anthony (7-28, 19 points), made one major mistake.
Carmelo Anthony is CLUTCH. pic.twitter.com/KhvAlQgvRw
— CBS Sports NBA (@CBSSportsNBA) January 18, 2016
You have to either foul or run Carmelo off the three-point line there. It was still a tough shot, but the point is that you can’t even allow him to take it.
The Sixers continued to battle for two overtimes, but their free-throw shooting (13-25) and tired legs finally proved to be the difference as Okafor stayed on the bench.
Follow Rich on Twitter: @rich_hofmann
