Did I mention that this was going to be a long season?
It didn't get any shorter last night, with the Sixers dropping their home opener to the Jazz 99-71, in a game that might not even have been as close as the 28-point final score would imply. The Sixers' offense was about as bad as it gets in this one, with nearly as many turnovers (18) as made field goals (19). Utah's big-man duo of Rudy Gobert and Derrick Favors absolutely swallowed us alive. The team shot just 30.2 percent for the game — remarkably, not even the worst-shooting performance of the Sixers' calendar year, having shot 30.1 percent against the Bucks back in January.
Jahlil Okafor was significantly less prolific than in his borderline-historic debut, scoring just 10 points on 4 of 12 shooting. He had some nice moves early and got some decent looks late, but he couldn't convert a couple tricky flips on the move, and he had virtually no chance getting over or around Gobert once the two started squaring off in the second half.
Nerlens fared even worse, utterly unable to make plays in traffic, and reverting somewhat to his hook-fisted rookie days of dropping everything that comes his way. He finished with just eight points on miserable 2 of 12 shooting, though at least he added ten rebounds, two dimes and two blocks to help earn his keep.
Really though, these first two Sixers games are best seen as a persuasive demonstration of why point guard play matters in the NBA. Nerlens, a combined 6 for 22 through his first two games, isn't really this inefficient an offensive player — he just has no one to get easy looks for him, with the team almost totally lacking in penetrators and play-makers. Every possession is a chore for this team, and not only are they not having any success with their half-court offense, it's not clear what they're even really trying to do.
Too many possessions end in go-nowhere post-ups or sprawling drives in which a Sixer blindly hopes to draw a foul or get a lucky rim-in. It's unsustainable, and we desperately could use Tony Wroten or Kendall Marshall. (For what it's worth, Brett Brown seemed unfazed by the team's miserable start on offense, essentially saying he expected as much and predicting a lot more of the same to come. "Everybody, bunker in," he advised the media.)
The one good thing to come from this mess was the long-awaited Sixers debut of Nik Stauskas. After missing the season opener and the entire preseason, the Sauce was on for 20 minutes, and for a player who hasn't really seen action for half a year, Stauskas looked impressive. He hit two of four attempts from beyond — the first providing the most electric moment at the WFC last night, though the competition there was not particularly stiff — and made a couple very nice passes, including a no-look drop-off to Jerami Grant on the break. He finished with 12 points on 3 for 6 shooting with two dimes; very solid numbers for a debut, and encouraging for what Stauskas could add to this team in more considerable minutes.
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We'll need Sauce, too, because no one else on this team seems able to pass or shoot right now. Nominal point guard duo Isaiah Canaan and T.J. McConnell combined to shoot 2 for 13 last night, with six assists and seven TOs. He won't be enough to save this team from themselves — not yet, certainly — but hopefully he can make the offense less odious an abomination for the time being, anyway. We'll see on Monday against the Cavs, if Nik's back doesn't go full Larry Bird on him in the meantime.