BOX SCORE
NEWARK, N.J.To say that Spencer Hawes was disappointed about being moved to a reserve role would be a disservice to the emotion of anger. In fact, Hawes was so ticked off about head coach Doug Collins' lineup shakeup for Tuesday's game against the Nets that he was downright despondent.
To get Hawes through an important game at the Prudential Center was going to be a difficult task.
Fortunately for Collins and the Sixers, assistant coach Jeff Capel had a perfect solution. In order to get Hawes to best handle the de facto demotion and clear his mind for the game against the Nets, Capel told the center to go and trash his hotel room.
Good idea, huh?
"Spencer was not happy," Collins said after the 107-88 blowout victory over the Nets (see Lynam's Instant Replay). "Jeff Capel is the besthe's the best. He told Spencer to go to his room, act like a little child, tear up your room, give me the bill and be ready to play tonight."
Guess what? The plan worked out so well that the Sixers may leave a trail of smashed up hotel rooms across North America as if they were a traveling rock band. On Tuesday night Hawes scored a season-high 19 points with eight rebounds in 22 minutes in the win.
"Spencer texted Jeff and said, 'Just went back to the room, trashed my room, busted up my TV, charged it to you and I'm ready to roll,'" Collins said.
OK... not really.
Hawes actually did not trash his hotel room or bust up his TV. He may have left his bed unmade for housekeeping, but everything else remained in the same condition as it was when Hawes checked in. Sure, Hawes wanted to chuck the TV out the window and splinter a dresser or two, but instead he decided to take out his frustration on the Nets.
They didn't stand a chance.
"Coach told me before the shootaround and, obviously, I wasn't happy," Hawes said about being moved out of the starting lineup. "I think anybody who plays this game, you get that news and you're not going to be happy. But there are two ways to respond, you can sit there and sulk about it or you can swallow it, be a man and try to make the most of it."
With Hawes properly directing his anger, the Sixers snapped a four-game losing skid and scored their most points in a game since going for 120 against the Wizards on Jan. 13.
Better yet, the Sixers looked like the club that jetted out to the 20-9 start to the season. In addition to Hawes 19, Lou Williams scored a team-high 20 points, while Thad Young also scored 19. Moreover, all three of the Sixers' top scorers came off the bench.
When the Sixers were playing well and winning games early on, it came when the bench shouldered the scoring load.
Not so coincidentally, the bench resurgence came after Collins reshuffled the lineup a bit. A month ago, Collins moved Evan Turner into the starting five, while shifting Jodie Meeks to a reserve role. For the game against the Nets, Meeks and Turner traded back spots, while rookie Nik Vucevic started the game with Hawes coming off the bench (see story). The residual effects of the move were huge.
Sure, Turner scored just two points on four shots, Meeks went 1 for 5 from three-point range, and Vucevic posted just four points, but basketball is a team game. The remastered rotations seemingly gave the Sixers a chemistry boost.
The new lineup looked good, but that bench lineup looked great, said Elton Brand, who had nine points and seven boards in 26 minutes. Spencer looked good with Lou Williams and Thaddeus. We have a lot of powera lot of firepower. In the beginning of the season it really showed. There were more games like this. We had strength in numbers and guys coming in waves. We got away from that the last few games, but it worked tonight.
The Sixers may have looked like the team of old, but they needed some help to get goingyknow, beyond orders to trash hotel rooms. To open the game the Sixers scored just four points in the first seven minutes and were trailing the Nets by as many as eight points. But with 4:38 to go in the opening quarter, Collins turned to his new second unit, replacing all of the starters except for Jrue Holiday.
It was another move that worked.
By the end of the first quarter the game was tied. The Sixers built a modest lead during the second quarter until the end of the half when Deron Williams hit two foul shots to make it a six-point game with 4.2 seconds left.
From there, the Sixers in-bounded the ball to Williams, who dashed the length of the floor where he fired up a three-pointer just in front of the Sixers bench. By the time the ball splashed through the net, Williams was headed through the tunnel to the locker room as his dagger pushed the Sixers' lead to nine points.
The Nets never got any closer.
It was real big and any time you get those its a boost, Collins said. Lou makes those shots.
Williams' three-pointer was his 15th buzzer-beating shot to end a quarter this season, and that's not counting the handful of shots he's buried with three-plus seconds left on the clock. There might not be an official NBA stat on it, but Williams may very well lead the league in last-second shots and demoralizers delivered. Undoubtedly Williams' first-half buzzer beater may have been the one to turn the tide on Tuesday night.
The shot mixed with the play from the revamped lineup has the Sixers headed into the most important stretch of games of the season. After Tuesdays victory the team jetted to Toronto to face the same Raptors team that ripped them by 21 at the Wells Fargo Center last week. From there, the Sixers head back home for another game against the Nets on Friday night.
I think its very fair to say that you will know who we are after Friday night, Collins said.
At 30-27, the Sixers remained three games behind the Celtics in the Atlantic, but pulled ahead of the Knicks by a game in the division and increased the lead to two games over the ninth-seeded Bucks. Meanwhile, there was no better indicator that the team was feeling like it did during the first months of the season than the old, Show ya luv sign.
Yes, the Sixers showed some love for a change.
E-mail John R. Finger at jfinger@comcastsportsnet.com.