Official Gamethread: ORL vs PHI

[Catalina Maria 64]

Lol at those people who said Noel > Oladipo.

 

Nerlens Noel has an attitude problem and clearly needs anger management class.

[magicblue 315]

Very happy that the guys did their job. Payton was awesome

 

The Free Throw curse seems to be gone

 

Only to be replaced by the "giving up offensive rebounds on missed FT's" curse.

[Secretly Space Jesus 670]

Yup. You're going to have to play 20 minutes per game and hit a defensive rating in the 80s for me to call you elite.

 

People on this board are very defensive of Dedmon for some reason.

 

I mean, I like Dedmon. He's a solid rotation big for his defense, even if he's more or less useless on offense. That's fine. There are guys who made great careers out of being that guy.

 

 

But lets not lose sight of what Dedmon IS, which is basically "Like Birdman, but slightly better".

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

People on this board are very defensive of Dedmon for some reason.

 

I mean, I like Dedmon. He's a solid rotation big for his defense, even if he's more or less useless on offense. That's fine. There are guys who made great careers out of being that guy.

 

 

But lets not lose sight of what Dedmon IS, which is basically "Like Birdman, but slightly better".

 

It's not dedmon. It's just a common theme with every player.

 

People on this board take the pinnacle performance of a player, project it like that player is going to be able to hit that mark consistently with improvement, then use the players inability to hit those lofty goals as a reason why that player is a disappointment.

 

Dedmon is improving and is probably going to be able to Jamaal magloire his way into some good stat lines. Then he's going to shut down an elite center while people exclaim his ceiling is going to be a Dpoy candidate.

 

Then when he falls back down to earth he's going to become a disappointment instead of a solid bench center who can use length and athleticism to bother guys on defense and excel in rim runs and put backs.

 

Same thing happened with Oladipo.

 

It went from Oladipo is a decent player who has the best shot to make one all star game from that draft class but isn't a franchise player but that's ok.

 

To

 

Oladipo reminds me of like 80% of wade.

 

To

 

Oladipo is going to be the next wade

 

To

 

Oladipo should get traded because he's not playing like a number one option.

[Skywise316 211]

It's game 7. Philly is going to win 20 games this year and 20 coaches aren't being fired.

 

Stop being ridiculous

 

I pictured a hilariously deep British accent when I read this.

[The Neighborhood Bully 266]

The value of a rim protector.....

 

Noel's defensive presence in the paint was sorely missed during that final frame, as dribble penetration from Orlando's guards went unchallenged at the rim. Over 41% of Orlando's offense came within 5 feet of the basket during the 26 minutes Noel was on the bench and they shot 52.6% at the rim during that time. With Noel in the game that fell to 32.4% of their field goal attempts at the rim on 41.7% shooting. That was even worse in the 4th quarter, where 57% of Orlando's field goal attempts came at the rim.

 

image: http://cdn.phillymag...-vs-orlando.jpg

 

The Sixers struggled to defend the rim when Nerlens Noel was out of the game. Data courtesy of nba.com/stats

 

There were some bright spots, most notably ball movement on the offensive end that continues to show promise for the future, even if the Sixers are sporadic in their ability to execute it. The Sixers used three three-pointers, two from Isaiah Canaan and one from Hollis Thompson, to pull within 8 at the end of three. Those open three pointers, much like the 12-0 run in the second quarter, were the result of excellent ball movement.

 

Read more at http://www.phillymag...5XzLIziWBLQV.99