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What's amazing about the 76ers is not just that they're making a belated run for the playoffs after starting the year 5-13, firing beleaguered general manager Billy King and dumping Kyle Korver for cap relief.

No, the really amazing part is that they just might pull it off without making a single 3-pointer all season.

OK, I exaggerated. But not by much.

The Sixers are last in the NBA in 3-point attempts and 3-point percentage, but even that stat overstates their abilities. Many of those 3-pointers came off the hand of Korver -- in fact he's still a close third on the team with 38 made despite departing after just 25 games. With him gone, Philly has been the most overwhelmingly inside-the-arc team we've seen in ages.

On Wednesday, Philly scored 101 points against Orlando, and 95 of them came from inside the arc. That's par for the course for the Sixers -- while going 8-4 during February, they made less than three 3-pointers a game and converted only 29.6 percent of their tries.

At 13 percent from 3, Andre Miller should stick to his floaters.

The Sixers right now have only one player who makes more than one 3-pointer a game -- Andre Iguodala at 1.1 -- and he shoots 30.9 percent from the arc. Their starting point guard, Andre Miller, shoots 13 percent, and one of their top reserves, Rodney Carney, is at 21.1 percent. Only one Sixer, Willie Green (36.2 percent), is converting better than the league average of 35.9 percent.

You'd think the Sixers would be easy to defend based on that information, but they've proven surprisingly competent at overcoming their lack of long-range shooting. Philly is 21st in the league in offensive efficiency, and has picked up the pace of late -- the Sixers have averaged a healthy 99.9 points per game in February, and since the 15-game mark their efficiency of 102.8 is nearly at the league average.

And that, in turn, has them talking playoffs. Wednesday's win over Orlando, in the eyes of my Playoff Odds at least, moved this scenario much closer to reality. Philly was at 78.9 percent beforehand, and 84.5 percent afterward, meaning the Sixers now have better odds of making it than the Wizards.

With 26 wins in the bank, they only need to win three or four more to clinch a top eight seed in the East. OK, I'm exaggerating again. But if they go 9-15 the rest of the way, they still probably get in; any better than that and their odds improve markedly. Thus, despite the Sixers almost comic inability to make 3s, they seem headed for an unexpected postseason berth.



Comment: The Sixers running game helps with their lack of shooting ability

Nice post. I think maybe it's time to start moving Sammy behind the 3-point line. After watching him against D Howard last night, I'm sure he's thinking the same thing.

Hollinger's a stats nut. He doesn't understand the intangibles that can't be measured. For instance, he likes the Raptors and this team is seriously flawed with no ability to play defense and no one besides Bosh can rebound.

Sixers winning? Someone should email him the Sixers' record.

noone wrote:Sixers winning? Someone should email him the Sixers' record.

Well we are a playoff team, and even if ur below .500 and make the playoffs your a winning team, and making the playoffs is good no matter what ur record is, we'll be 36-46 and still make it owell and if make the playoffs its consider winning and much faster then expected and we dont need a winning record to make it althought it would be nice if philly went 41-41 or 42-40.

but in the playoffs, when half court rules and you play better teams every night, their lack of three point shooting will be very evident. you can beat teams like the bucks, kings, bobcats and knicks just by outrunning and outscoring them. but when you play good teams you need to be able to spread the floor. the sixers cant. so now, not only do we not have an inside game... we dont have an outside game either.

half the league (and 99% of its fans) have been fooled by the suns and made to believe you can win by running and gunning. but guess what... we dont have stoudamire, or nash, or marion, or barbosa... they had elite level athletes/players when they were successful running and even they couldnt get to the finals. they had three players who were better than any ONE of ours, and STILL FAILED.

trading kyle was a business move pure and simple. unfortunately it was a dumb one. they cleared some more salary for a free agent right? hhmmm, which one should we get? elton brand who is coming off a major injury and has played on about two winning teams in 8 seaons? maybe we should hope shawn marion would rather play with iggy than dwayne wade (yeah right) garnett is already off the table. oh, wait, i know, lets get omeka okafor. his 14pts/11rbd career is really worth a max deal. or theres always corey maggette, a 30 year old clone of iguodala minus the passing ability.

trade your only 3pt. shooter for cap room that you either cant use, or will spend on a player who doesnt deserve it, or at best, a risk player coming off an injury. - thats a real recipe for success.

Great post psykosacul.

The only part I partially disagree with is the Korver bit. The move would have been fine with me if we had been able to get enough under the tax to max out a player, but that isn't the case, so I wonder what really was the use of losing one of the best shooters in the league.

If the Sixers wanted max space, they pretty much had to move Korver because nobody else worth losing has any value at all.

Overall, this has been a very frustrating season for me, but I predicted that before the season started so I don't know why I'm still surprised.

Though when the Sixers go through that tough stretch of games this month and lose a lot of games, I'm sure i'll enjoy watching people jump off the bandwagon again like they did back in January for that week or so.

DeOgar wrote:-= original quote snipped =-

Well we are a playoff team, and even if ur below .500 and make the playoffs your a winning team, and making the playoffs is good no matter what ur record is, we'll be 36-46 and still make it owell and if make the playoffs its consider winning and much faster then expected and we dont need a winning record to make it althought it would be nice if philly went 41-41 or 42-40.

How can a team that loses more than it wins be a "winning" team? This may be the worst conference in the history of the league, doing well in it isn't much of an accomplishment.

noone wrote:-= original quote snipped =-



How can a team that loses more than it wins be a "winning" team? This may be the worst conference in the history of the league, doing well in it isn't much of an accomplishment.

Its more then wins/losses its about the playoffs and yes east is weak, but everyone expected philly to be a 25-30 win team, and if u make the playoffs and yes i know the east is bad, but the sixers arent ones **** up its everyone else like the bulls,nets, pacers,heat usually playoff teams. So in my eyes were winning morally...and who knows maybe we will be at 42-40 and make a lil run in the end like the heat did in d-wade's rookie season when they went 0-7 at 1st.