| Poor Defense Could Haunt Sixers Season Authored by Jim Serratore - March 8, 2005 - 10:44 pm
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The Sixers hold the key to their own playoff destiny. That much has been certain for months. Nothing has changed dramatically since the beginning of the season, with all five teams in the Atlantic still in the hunt for the division crown. Nothing figures to change between now and the end of the regular season either. Although Chris Webber joined the Sixers, and Antoine Walker rejoined the Celtics in major trade deadline deals, neither team appears to be a serious threat to run away with the division title as a result.
Like a bad, predictable sitcom, the Atlantic Division has begun to resemble baseball’s American League Central Division, with the Sixers and Celtics auditioning for the role of the Minnesota Twins. Meanwhile the Pistons and Heat are looking more and more like the Yankees and Red Sox- just waiting for the playoffs to begin so they can kick it into high gear and dismantle any pretender who dares to step in their path.
The more the Sixers changed at the trading deadline, the more they stayed the same. Defense was preached by Jim O’Brien and his coaching staff from day one. With only six weeks left in the regular season, defense still remains the key focal point. A pedestrian defense is also the main reason why the Sixers cannot seem to kick the habit of mediocrity, with or without Webber.
For years it was clear that the Sixers roster needed a serious upgrade to compliment Allen Iverson’s otherworldly talents, but did Chris Webber and Rodney Rogers add enough offensive firepower to offset the Sixers chronic inability to stop opposing teams from scoring points in bunches? Based on what we’ve seen so far, the answer is a resounding “no!”
While we wait for Iverson and Webber to finally click offensively, the key to the Sixers ultimate success has more to do with whether or not this team can put it all together on the defensive side of the court. As the saying goes, “offense wins games, but defense wins championships.”
Never mind the fact that the Sixers offense has resembled a chicken with its head cut off for much of the year, and especially since the arrival of C-Webb. That problem has a good chance of being solved between now and the end of the regular season. Eventually, you have to figure Iverson and Webber are going to step up and become a consistently dominant offensive force. They each have way too much talent not to be on the same page. But will that be good enough? As long as the Sixers defense continues to surrender 100 points per game, they will be left on the outside of the Eastern Conference Contender’s Club, looking in. And Sixers fans will once again be left to wait for next year.
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