Scene Setter:
The 76ers (2-30) head due north from Phoenix for their only trip of the season to Salt Lake City. On Monday at 9:00 PM EST, they’ll go up against the Utah Jazz (12-16), which this weekend learned they’ll have yet another injury to overcome. The Sixers will be seeking to string together consecutive wins for the first time since last season, having previously done so in the middle of March. In their 111-104 victory over the Phoenix Suns, the Sixers competed with a contagious energy from the start, using an 11-0 run to race out to a 14-point lead by the end of the opening quarter. Ish Smith revved things up in the first game of his second stint with the organization, collecting 14 points, two rebounds, and five assists. Nerlens Noel, shifting to the center position in the absence of Jahlil Okafor, hit all but one of his seven shot attempts, posting 14 points and 11 rebounds. The Sixers’ seven-man bench unit totaled 57 points, with Nik Stauskas and Carl Landry producing 17 and 16 points, respectively.Utah is in the midst of a stretch of playing eight of 10 games at Vivint Smart Home Arena. After entering last week with wins in back-to-back outings, the Jazz have since lost two in a row. Their competition, however, has been stiff. Wednesday, Utah fell by 18 points to the Golden State Warriors on the road. Then on Saturday, the club failed to protect a five-point halftime lead versus the Los Angeles Clippers. It was in that game that high-flying, attacking guard Alec Burks sustained a left ankle fracture that could keep him out for at least six weeks, according to reports. Utah is currently dealing with injuries to Dante Exum, Derrick Favors, and Rudy Gobert, all of whom were penciled in as starters heading into the season. Series: In their first match-up of the season with Utah, the Sixers had difficulty establishing any rhythm. The Jazz relied on a stifling defensive effort to earn a 99-71 victory win in what was the second contest of the year for both clubs. The Sixers’ point total from that outing still stands as their lowest in 32 games. Their 30.2 filed goal percentage remains a season-low figure as well. No Sixer finished with more than 12 points, as Jerami Grant and Nik Stauskas shared team-high scoring honors. Utah was paced by sixth-year forward Derrick Favors, who powered his way to 20 points and 12 rebounds. The Jazz have controlled the rivalry between the teams as of late, winning each of the last six meetings. Utah has also won the last 10 confrontations staged in Salt Lake City. Subplots:
Roughly 15 hours after the Sixers recorded their second victory of the season, Brett Brown was still in upbeat spirits, saying he even “slept a little bit” the night before. His team had fallen in 12 straight outings prior to its 111-104 win over Phoenix, and had trailed by at least 20 points in six consecutive games. Brown seemed especially impressed with the Sixers’ fortitude and resilience. “The thing I do know is that we never lost our spirit,” said Brown, praising his group. “It went away for three or four possessions in multiple recent games, then you find a way to battle back. And so I think our spirit is high. We stay together. The lockerroom is good. Welcoming Ish [Smith] back into the lockerroom is great. Having the opportunity to reunite all of us is a good thing. You can’t certainly say, ‘We’re back,’ but we want to keep this thing going, and we feel pretty good about where we’re at right now.”Against the Suns, Smith proved to be one of the primary catalysts for a club seeking leadership, dependability, and stability from its point guards. On the Sixers’ first possession of the night, he found his old running mate, Nerlens Noel, for an alley-oop stuff, prompting Brown to say to himself, “Ok, here we go.” “This is a fresh start,” Brown said of the current stage of the Sixers’ schedule. “I think that how we break down the seasons, it gives us a chance to release things in the past, and move forward. And so we feel like we’re 1-0 in this middle-third. We got a beat on the program right now. There’s a pulse to the program, and we just want to grow it and keep it going.”
As for the Sixers’ practice itself on Sunday, Brett Brown was pleased with what he saw. The team was once again back at Talking Stick Resort Arena, opting to practice in Phoenix before hopping a one-hour flight north to Salt Lake City. The Sixers were on the floor for a little under two hours.”It was productive, because we got stuff done,” stated Brown. He felt it was necessary for the Sixers to take advantage of a rare lull in the schedule, and put in work. “The NBA is not conducive to practicing, because you’re always back-to-back. So [Sunday] was a good practice, in fact a great practice. We come in spirited because of the win, and it was purposeful. We have 14 days up until the All-Star break that we can practice. So, this was one of them. And we tell our guys, 13 [practices] left, 12 left. We walk things down, and so we say we’re going to have a professional, purposeful practice, and they were great.”The importance of keeping players fresh, however, was not lost on Brown. The Sixers have four games remaining on their current road trip, which ends with a January 2nd outing with the Los Angeles Clippers. They’ll then return home to host the Minnesota Timberwolves on January 4th to open a season-long six-game homestand. Brown said, “You have to get ahead of the story in regards to what is coming, because we’re going to be playing four games in six days. With us, you’re just reminded physically of how you have to deliver them to the Utah game, and then how do you deliver them to the back-to-backs. So [Sunday] was good where we achieved things, yet we didn’t take their physical side too much.”
Speaking of health…In what Brett Brown labeled a “precautionary” decision, the Sixers decided to hold Jahlil Okafor out of Saturday’s game. The center had been experiencing soreness in his right knee, and, with the bulk of the Sixers’ road trip still looming, the team didn’t want to put Okafor in a position to overextend himself. Following Sunday’s practice session at Talking Stick Resort Arena, Brown matter-of-factly indicated that, more likely than not, Okafor will miss a second consecutive game when the Sixers face the Utah Jazz on Monday. “It’s for sure 50 / 50, and if you made me guess, I’d say no,” Brown said, referring to Okafor’s potential availability. “I could be wrong.” Not only was the Sixers’ frontcourt rotation thin in Phoenix because of Okafor’s absence, Richaun Holmes had to exit the game in the second quarter due to a right knee sprain. That development, coupled with Jerami Grant and JaKarr Sampson running into foul trouble, forced Brown to rely on veteran power forward Carl Landry a little bit more than he would have preferred, to the tune of 23 minutes. “Carl is still on a minute restriction,” said Brown, adding that Landry’s playing time limit could increase to 25 minutes on Monday. “I thought he came in, and was just a veteran man that made big shots that we needed rhythm-changers. We needed to stop a run, and he did that.” Landry netted 16 points and brought in eight rebounds. In another positive update on the injury front, Holmes went through Saturday’s practice, and is on track to play in Utah.
Sixers Health Report:
Jahlil Okafor (right knee)
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