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**Coatesvillain** · 11-29-2004, 05:54 AM

Quote:

Jackson wasn't angry at his team but at the situation. The Sixers had been outscored in the fourth period for the sixth consecutive game, this time by 26-20.

"We've got to finish games out," said Jackson, who scored six points and grabbed three rebounds in the final quarter. "We have let three or four wins get away, and this is really frustrating."

Over the last six games, the Sixers, 6-7 overall, are 2-4. Jackson felt they gave away Saturday's game as well as a 103-95 loss to Seattle and an 88-80 loss to San Antonio, both at the Wachovia Center.

In the Seattle game, the Sixers were outscored by 26-23 in the fourth quarter, while against San Antonio, they were outscored by 33-21 in the final period.

Both Jackson and coach Jim O'Brien dismissed the notion that the team was tired in the fourth quarter against Orlando.

"We were fresh, and we have a deep bench," Jackson said.

It's easy to wonder, though, if the bench is so deep, why three players - Jackson, Allen Iverson and Kyle Korver - played all 12 minutes in the final period, while Corliss Williamson logged 11 minutes.

The argument can be made that a team wants its best players on the court in the fourth period, but were the best Sixers all at peak efficiency Saturday?

Steve Francis, who scored 15 fourth-quarter points, was the only Magic player to log more than nine minutes in the final period. But he played only 34 minutes in the game, compared to 42 for Iverson, who struggled through a 7-for-25 shooting night.

The Magic seemed to be the fresher team in the second half. The Sixers were playing the second game of a back-to-back set, but so was Orlando, which had won in Atlanta on Friday night, so that couldn't be used as an excuse.

LINK

I think the key part in this is the fact that O'Brien stuck with the same group for basically the entire fourth quarter. Sure it worked against Boston in the opener, but doing that is not going to work in games against superior teams, especially when the game is on the heels of an OT game Vs the Wizards.

If I have to criticize one thing about O'Brien it's that he doesn't get the best matchups on the floor, especially in key situations. And he'll throw a player who's on fire (Willie Green) and put them on ice for so long that when they come back in they're basically ineffective.

**Kunlun** · 11-29-2004, 06:14 AM

Not so long ago the fourth quarter used to be our quarter. Now, we dread it. How times have changed.

**Coatesvillain** · 12-01-2004, 10:57 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by KL Dawger!
Not so long ago the fourth quarter used to be our quarter. Now, we dread it. How times have changed.

The difference now is when the game's on the line in the fourth quarter we have Iverson, Williamson and Jackson playing and those three are some of the worst defenders at their positions in the league. Doing things like that doesn't breed success. They also have Korver out there who has made great strides on defense, but is a decent defender on his best day, Iguodala is our best on ball defender but he's not an Artest in terms of defense (at least not yet).

You can't win the boards with Jackson and Williamson in the fourth, maybe in the third when the other teams bigs are on the bench, but not in the fourth.

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