BOX SCORE
As if the Sixers didnt need any more motivation, there it was in black and white. Facing the tough, bruising Indiana Pacers in the first game of a back-to-back-to-back on Monday night at the Wells Fargo Center, the Sixers had a hot tip that fired up the team.
That tip came in the form of a scouting report that was apparently left sitting around saying that to beat the Sixers, all the Pacers had to do was dominate the second unit.
Easier said than done.
In the Sixers' 96-86 victory over the Pacers (see game breakdown), it was the second unit that dominated as the team kicked off the tough, three-game stretch with its fifth win in a row.
Someone messed up and left the scouting report out, said Lou Williams, who came off the bench to score 13 points to go with a team-high six assists.
Its a curious thing, if not flat-out wrong. Certainly with most NBA teams a good tactic would be to force the opposition to go to the bench, but the Sixers arent like most teams. Williams is the Sixers' leading scorer and hasnt started a game since last year. Plus, 2010 second overall pick Evan Turner as well as fifth-year veteran Thad Young all come off the bench to give the Sixers one of the more explosive second units in the game.
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Why would any team want to build a gameplan around trying to beat up on the Sixers bench?
I think it really got us juiced up -- we got a hot tip that they wanted to dominate the game with the second unit, said Young, who took four charges and deflected five passes during the game. We kept hearing coach yelling during the game, Cmon second unit, lets dominate this game. But me, Lou, Evan and Nik (Vucevic), we come out and just play. Weve been doing this for a while and we dont let any of that get to us. We just try to impact games.
The Sixers' bench scored 41 points in the victory that kept the team atop the Atlantic Division standings. Along with Williams 13 points, Young added 12 and rookie Nikola Vucevic scored a season-high 11 to go with eight rebounds in 17 minutes. But it was more than the scoring and the stats that spurred the Sixers. During a couple of crucial points of the game the Sixers bench came on to hold things together, and in the case of one stretch during the third quarter, it went on an 11-0 run to turn a small lead into a big one.
That run came at the 7:26 mark of the third quarter when power forward Elton Brand went to the bench with his fourth foul. With center Spencer Hawes also plagued by foul problems, Sixers coach Doug Collins turned to Young and Vucevic to battle Indianas big-men, 7-foot-2 Roy Hibbert and 6-foot-11 center Jeff Foster, as well as big forwards David West and Tyler Hansbrough.
Instead of being dominated, Young and Vucevic ran on them.
Thaddeus Young people are going to have to start talking about him for All-Defensive team, Collins said. He is undersized, but tonight he had eight rebounds, 12 points and he blows up every screen-and-roll. He absolutely gets out there, hedges, gets back and his speed and quickness is amazing.
As soon as Young checked in, he got two steals to start breaks, beginning a run that would be capped by a Vucevic three-pointer with 4:27 remaining in the third.
That wasnt the only instance of Vucevic supplying huge relief, either. When Hawes went to the bench with three fouls at 3:12 remaining in the first half, the rookie cleaned the glass for four rebounds, including an athletic tip in for two points.
Though the Sixers nailed down their sixth victory by double-digits, it wasnt as easy as the score indicated. For one, the Sixers committed 18 turnovers, which meant the team had to shoot 50 percent from the floor. Overcoming the turnovers was also possible because the Sixers rebounded well, too. Before the game Collins explained how hitting the defensive glass would be crucial because of the Pacers size, not to mention that the team averaged 13 offensive boards per game and was 6-0 when it out-rebounded an opponent headed into Monday night.
In the end, the Sixers out rebounded the Pacers by five.
We trumped them, Collins said. We came down and scored when we had to.
Meanwhile, Andre Iguodala scored a game-high 20 points to go with a team-high nine rebounds. When his starting teammates shot 3 for 10 during the first quarter and forced Collins to go to the bench for a spark, Iguodala carried the load. He scored seven points in the opening stanza and added five more in the second.
"'Dre really gave us a chance to win, Collins said. We were struggling to score and our starting unit got off to another slow start and our bench came in and gave us a lift.
Next, the Sixers play the middle game of the three-game whirlwind when the Sacramento Kings come to town. At 3-6 its already been a stormy season for the Kings, one in which its star player DeMarcus Cousins asked to be traded and coach Paul Westphal was fired. Regardless, the Kings struggled last season too, but came to the Center for a late-season game and escaped with an overtime win.
In the meantime, the Kings might want to keep those scouting reports under wraps.
E-mail John Finger at jfinger@comcastsportsnet.com.