Some Quick Stats About Jrue's Shooting Night for the Ages in Last Night's Miserable Sixers Loss

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You could be mad at me for promising in my pre-game column that you
could flip from tonight's potentially very depressing Phillies game (and
it was) to a Sixers game that would be no worse than slightly
depressing, since the Ballers did end up losing 88-83 to the NBA's worst
team in a basketball game after which everyone involved will spend
days, possibly weeks huddled in the corner of the shower crying out of
irreparable trauma. But I'd argue that tonight's game was far more funny
than depressing. I mean, really, when Jrue Holiday has a night where he
goes 2-24 from the field, it has to get funny at some point, right?


Oh, and that's not a typo, and it's definitely not an exaggeration.
Jrue Holiday made two baskets out of 24 attempts last night, for a grand
total of five points.

Sometime in the first quarter, Jrue
banked in a layup for an and-one, which he coverted. A whole lot of
minutes later, in the fourth quarter, he got his own rebound off a layup
attempt that sailed comically high off the backboard, putting it back
in.


In between, there were misses. Oh, were there misses.

There
were misses off the front iron. There were misses off the back iron.
There were misses that rolled around and dropped off. There were misses
that were halfway down and popped back out. There were clanked threes,
blown layups, and sprawling lane heaves that landed nowhere even close.
There were so many misses that two-thirds of the way through the
quarter, Collins brought in Evan Turner like a relief pitcher to run the
offense (which was very briefly productive but ultimately proved
unsustainable). Jrue must really, really be freaked out to be playing
with his brother—though it wasn't like Senior Holiday put much of a
hurting on the Bobcats either, going 1-5 for two points in his Sixer
debut.


Jrue would probably very much like to sweep this game under the rug
and let it never be spoken of again. We'll oblige him soon enough, but
before we do, some arguably fun stats about Jrue's night of two makes in
two dozen attempts.

 - Jrue's shooting percentage for the night was an incredible 7.7%, the lowest he's posted since he put up an 0-9 against the Mavs February of last year. His previous low for the season was the 12.5% (1-8 FG) he shot against the Clippers last week.

 - The shooting night lowers Jrue's season average from 44.1% from the field to 43.4%. Might not sound like a big drop, but when you've taken nearly 1200 shots for the season (as the Damaja has), it's really hard to cost your field goal average almost a whole percentage point in just one night's work.

 - Jrue's 22 missed shots last night was equal to the number of shots made by the entire Sixers starting lineup.

 - Jrue missed 22 of his 24 attempts last night. In his last four games combined, LeBron James has missed just 23 shots, in 67 attempts (279% more).

 - Jrue's 22 misses is easily the most missed field goals by a player who only made two field goals in a game this season—the next-closest being Raptors center Andrea Bargnani's 2-19 night against the Spurs. According to Basketball-Reference's Game Finder, no player since 1986 (where their records begin) has made exactly two field goals and missed as many times as Jrue did against the Bobcats, the closest thing being Sixer great Allen Iverson's 2-21 night against the Knicks back in 2004.

 -  Six players have posted a worse field goal percentage in a game this season in which they made at least one shot, however—the worst of which being Portland's Damien Lillard, who went 1-16 against the Magic in February.

 -  Only one other player this year has missed 22 field goals in a game, and he's done it three times. And if you needed more than two chances to guess that it was Kobe Bryant, you need to watch more NBA.

Good times!

Not to single out Jrue unnecessarily—everyone
has a bad game now and then, he's still young and learning, he was
probably still smarting from that barrage of make-up noogies Justin gave
him before the game, etc.—and it's not like anyone else on Philly was
that much better anyway, Thad going 2-9, Evan shooting 6-15 with five
turnovers, and so on. But man, if Jrue's performance last night doesn't
signify just how futile this Sixers season is getting...I don't think I
could take much more symbolism here.

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