On my way to the game, I had a good feeling about this one. Last Saturday, for some unknown reason, I found myself up late watching the match-up between Phoenix and Golden State. I was not impressed by the Suns. They were playing at home on the back end of a home and home series with the Warriors. They had lost to Golden State 124-112 on Wednesday. There was hardly any commentary about the game with all the ceaseless talk about how the team is under achieving and the trade rumors about Stoudemire. The Suns won that game, but there was no defense played. The balance of the game rested in the hands of the team that made the last run.
Stoudemire, for his part, played well. I kind of like the idea of a commenter's that the Sixers should be in the sweepstakes to trade for him.
But the nite was for the Sixers and particularly Mo Speights. He had a coming out party, as they say, with a career high 24 points. He single handedly out-paced the Suns in the 2nd period to turn the game into a rout. I didn't see him make many more shots than he normally does. He just strung them together nicely.
In fact the Sixers had 3 players who scored over 20. Young Thad had his motor going and proved once again to be a match-up problem at power forward for the Suns. And Iggy just seemed to score repeatedly in the paint. I counted at least 5 dunks!
So it's good to see the Sixers further above the .500 mark (26-24). They are guaranteed to be a .500 team at the All-Star break. So we are ahead of last years pace and solidly entrenched as the play-offs 7th seed. There's not a great distance between them and the 3 teams ahead of them. We should be talking about a run for that 4th or 5th seed.
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