Man, having two All-NBA players on your roster (or one, or even the prospect of one) must be nice. The Philadelphia 76ers gave a pretty sporting effort against the Oklahoma City Thunder last night — kept it close for as long as they could, even led for a stretch in the second quarter, never totally let it get to blowout stages — but they still lost fairly handily, because OKC has Kevin Durant (26 points on 11-16 shooting, 13 boards and six dimes) and Russell Westbrook (his 124th triple-double of the season, a 20-15-10) and we don't. No shame in that, but also no surprise that it's our 14th straight L to them.
At the very least, we can now finally and officially welcome Nik Stauskas to the NBA's esteemed 20-point-scorer club. The wing scorer, who put up 20+ 14 times over his sophomore year at Michigan, had yet to escape the teens in his first 133 pro games, before finally putting up 23 on the Thunder last night, including 5-7 shooting from deep, snapping him out of a miserable long-range slump that saw Sauce go 6-29 from three over his last eight games. (He also added four boards, three assists, and three steals.)
It's nights like last night that make me hope the Sixers stick with Stauskas for at least another year — he's getting better, albeit too slowly, and if he can work on his body in the offseason and stay healthy, I really don't think a huge, J.J. Redick style jump is out of the question for Nik. Shooting guards, especially the non-supreme-athletes, always seem to need a couple years to really find their game in the pros, and although Stauskas certainly hasn't done a ton to make himself seem like a blue-chipper this year, I still believe he can help us win games in the future. (And don't worry, Sauce, we won't tell anyone about that last-second bucket you sneaked in with the game decided last night to pad your stats. We woulda done the same.)
Next up: A home date against the Celtics, our fourth and final meeting of the year. Tomorrow's game, we should all be rooting for Boston (and Atlanta, and Charlotte) to hold the Miami Heat down in the standings and get their draft slot around 21 — as good a thing to hold our NBA interest as any as the worst Sixers season of many of our lifetimes dwindles to a close.