Seth Vigdor
Hold up! Now wait just a damn minute. While a nail was put in the Eagles’ season coffin last night, the Sixers got their second win of the season. They took down the Suns in Phoenix 111-104 in Ish Smith’s first game back with the team, since being released by them at the end of last season.
Ish Smith, who was acquired in a trade with New Orleans on Christmas Eve, scored 14 points in a starting role, while Nerlens Noel had 14 points to go along with 11 rebounds. Isaiah Canaan scored 22 points, Nik Stauskas had 17 and Carl Landry added 16 points. It was a true team effort from them on Saturday night.
New Assistant Head Coach, Mike D’Antoni flexed his muscles to bring Ish Smith back to the team and Smith showed some promise in his first game back.
Philadelphia (2-30) snapped a 12-game losing streak with its first win since Dec. 1. They also stopped a 23-game road slide dating back to last season.
Smith had this to say following the game via Brian Seltzer, Sixers.com reporter.
“I can get a whole lot better. In that third quarter, they started trapping and funneling me down to the bigs, and so when I got off the ball in the fourth quarter, I was able to relax and be really good defensively, and save my energy for the defensive end and then offensively, I thank God I hit some big shots. It was good, but there’s another level I want to get to so I’m going to stay hard on myself. A good win, and it’s blessed we hit some big shots down the stretch. We still can work on closing the game out a little better, but other than that, pretty good win.”
The Sixers will look to get their second win in a row on Monday night when they travel to Utah. The next worst team in the NBA is the Los Angeles Lakers at 5-25.