Rewind vs. Phoenix Suns - 11/4/19

I'm Brian Seltzer. We're gonna touch base with Tom mcguinnis in just a moment while also playback some of the highlight calls that Tom had in tonight's game as well, a bummer for the seventy Sixers. You figured at some point the loss was going to come. At one point tonight's game, it didn't seem like it would be against the Suns. The Sixers, led by seven points, seemed to have the game within their control early in the third quarter.

Within the Suns, which have been not only an impressive team this year, but a good second half team, a really good second half team, one of the best in the league, started to mount their comeback, and of course, when you have such a dynamic scoring talent the likes of Devin Booker, who has burned the seventy Sixers over the course of his career. You always have to be on guard and on alert. Booker ended up going for

forty points. Ricky Rubio for twenty one. The Sixers could not get a handle on the turnovers they committed twenty that led to twenty three points scored by the Phoenix Suns. The Sun's outscoring the Sixers thirty three to twenty seven to the fourth quarter enough to pull out the Wine fourteen to one. On nine. Sixers got, as I said,

a really great effort from Al Horford. Man. How phenomenal was he not just tonight but also the games Saturday as well, when the Sixers without Joel embiid thirty two points from Al Horford, two off his career high. The thirteen year veteran also with five rebounds and four assists in thirty four minutes of play. Tobias Harris got the

Sixers roll in early. He had a really good start, finished ten to twenty from the field, twenty four points, ten rebounds, his second double double on the season for con Cork Mos. Two days after clinching the game in Rip City, went for a career best twenty points, four three pointers for cork Mas, but the Sixers did not

get a ton from their bench. As Brett Brown alluded to if you heard the postgame press conference, not only did they miss eight of their free throws twelve twenty from the line, didn't get to the line all that much, and for the first time this season, the Sixers I thought were outdone, outplayed on the interior. Phoenix Suns outrebounded

the Sixers by two. The Sixers, they did have a decent margin on the offensive glass they were plus four, but that didn't manifest itself in second chance scoring the way that it did for the Sixers and the five games leading into tonight, and also after going for eighty four points in the paint against Portland on Saturday, the Suns, relying on the likes of Aaron Baines and also Dario Scharitch, contained the Sixers for thirty two points in the paint. Tonight.

Ben Simmons just too freight from the field for six point points. Josh Richardson with eight points. The seventy Sixers starting guard duo not their best combined outing in terms of the six games the Sixers have played so far. Tom Aguinnis called this one from the desert in Phoenix, Arizona. Tom It was a back and fourth game, nine lead changes, twelve ties. We knew the Suns were a good second half team, especially in the fourth quarter, and that man

Devin Booker was at it again. Yeah, no, he's amazing. You know what is so impressive Brian that he has a fast gear, he has a fifth gear, but for the most part he's kind of surveying the scene like a running back in football, probing, looking where the opening is and then also waiting for his screeners to come, and he kind of just finds out where he's gonna go with that ball. And you know, we know him

as a great catch and shoot player. But some of those baskets down the stretch from the right baseline, the drive where he's shifted it to the left hand and made it on Al Horford, and another kind of fade away from about fourteen feet along the right base line just in an angle that had almost the ball almost had a float over the corner of the glass. Very impressive.

He's got an array, a multitude of scoring plays and opportunities and he put them out there, plus the free throws, and like you say, good second half team great finished by him. He had eleven in the fourth quarter, and just like with the six Ers, and I thought, Coach, as you might expect, nailed it, and that is the six Ers missed the free throws, they didn't have a tremendous performance up and down the bench, and Furkin ended up being that third score. But they needed a little

bit more balanced through the course of the game. And the Suns closed it out here at home. And guess what I mean. The Sixers played without a bead and they played without DeAndre Ayton. So there's always a surprise team.

And the Western Conference, of course, is stacked. Who knows how long this will hold for them, but they are way ahead of maybe where anybody would have thought they would have been, and they're right in the thickest things in the West in the opening two weeks of this NBA season, and the two losses come against two really good teams, Denver and Utah by a point of piece. Do you think, Tim the Sixers on the interior got their biggest test in the season tonight in terms of

what Bains and Dario were able to do. How Phoenix is able to compete with them inside, Absolutely no doubt about it, and you know, they did a good job. Bains, as we've seen, you know over the years with Boston, is just a terrific player, one of those underrated players. Great signing by them to get him. I thought Dario

was okay. I don't know that he was a huge factor in the game, but you know, they they're helping and recovering on defense, and then offensively, they spread the Sixers out and created space and we're setting up a drawn kick opportunities, and they played a lot of middle pick and roll with Rubio and Booker and the likes of Bains and others setting those screens, and they did a good job backdoor cuts and whatnot there. It's it's

kind of like how the Sixers offense was. The Sixers don't play as much of that anymore, and that because of the size and whatnot, but they were they were better in that area tonight. So the Sixers have dominated the glass, they dominated that points in the pain, but not as much here tonight, seventy six Ers loose for the first time this season one fourteen, one on nine at Phoenix. Tim try to I try to keep a

neutral unbiased. Uh oh, you're looking bias you are told you're to be You're the number one fan in the Horford club. You knew where I was going. I mean, it is just a treat to watch him. I thought that play. I know this is a loss, and you know we probably should be a little bit more you know, temperate here. But I thought the play at the end of the first half where he kind of like bumped off Bains knocked down a deep straight away three was one of the great plays for him on a great night,

thirty two points. He's been terrific in the absence of Joel these last two games. No, you're right, and at the end of the first quarter two and then maybe his most spectacular play was the rebound dunk bottle slam after the Simmons miss, and then again late he hit a huge three and you know that was still at that point a three possession game, I mean, sorry, a three point game, a one possession game game. And then

the Sixers did that again with Furkon hitting that. So now you couldn't ask for more from Al Horford again. In the course of last season, sixty eight games with the Celtics, he had nine twenty plus point games, and he's already in the first six games, had three with the Sixers. So he is producing and he's you could just see him and you've watched practices at the training complex, Brian, where he is that that phrase like a coach on

the floor. He really he gets guys and he talks to him on the side, and he's really just a total veteran presence. And Tobias was good here tonight. They were great, and particularly through you know, the first forty five or so minutes of the game, Harrison that up falling out. But again I thought the Sixers needed more. They needed somebody like Mike Scott or Ben or Josh Richardson or Ennis or Thieble, somebody to step up and

make more scoring plays. And it didn't just happen. And Phoenix, a young and athletic team on the rise, had the Sixers number here tonight, particularly late already time speak with you on Wednesday from Salt Lake City. All right, good night, thank you, Brian. Seventy Sixers drop a one fourteen one on nine decision to the Phoenix Suns. The Phoenix Suns now five and two, the seventy Sixers their first loss,

now five and one on the year. Thirty two from Big Al Horford, twenty four and ten from Tobias Harris. Will get to some of the highlights coming up. Game number two of a four game Western Conference road trip for the seventy Sixers. Put the going into the night, undefeated squad in the desert. My name's Brian Seltzer. Here's how it sounded. Seventy Sixers and the Phoenix Suns. Tobias Harris was really good at the outset of this game. Harris handles in against the left the ubre out of Kansas.

Tobias Harris with a right hand dribble him put up from seventeen and it's up in good. Harris rattles it in so the Sixers allow him to be the initiator and he calls his own number. Put the Sixers up four to two. Early on, the Phoenix Suns would respond, and then the Sixers and Phoenix would begin trading leads back and forth. It was the seventy Sixers that ended

the first quarter on a positive note. Park Mooth battles Fike Scott gets it how old with five netto with the ball netto on the dribble netto down the lane to the quarner Al Horford for three. It's good having the Sixers with point three to go in the opening quarter have taken the lead. Thirty one twenty nine was the score. That's how it would be going into the

second quarter. Let us fast forward to the end of the first half and that man Al Horford found himself in a spot to do some damage from deep once again. Three seconds to go for the Sixers. Harford has it. He knocks down Bays. He tries to shoot at three at the horse Pit's good. Now Horford has done it again. He made a three at the end of the opening quarter. He nailed a tribble here at halftime, down goes base had down Goes to three. Poor big Al. It was

an awesome play. Seventy sixers in front sixty one and fifty six at intermission. The third quarter of the Sixers would go up by a game high seven point margin. Phoenix came charging back to Bias, Harris doing his thing

to keep the seventy sixers in front. To Bias with the ball six to shoot four minutes to go in the quarter, Harris on the right side against Booker, backing down with a gribble three on o'clock turns face fires in the air gun in a foul Devin Booker to bias, Harris puts it in, and moments later it would be Harris on a driving lamp with nine tenths of a second left from the third to keep the Sixers in front going into the fourth eighty two to eighty one.

The game was back and forth throughout the evening, especially so in the fourth quarter Devin Booker Ricky Rubio starting to step up for the Suns. They went up by seven points with just under six minutes to go. Al Horford let a seventy Sixers come back Sixers in transition. Simmons with it right at Dario drives at right hand lamp, no pre bouts lamp, Hartford he hammers and in time out Preheenix. Simmons fishes. Hartford slabs big. Al a thirty

three year old. I'll have to I asked Tommy about that call, but I'm pretty sure he was mimicking the inflection of the Boston Celtics PA announcer a TD Garden, the way he used to introduce Al Horford. Anyhow, that tied it up at one hundred. Big moment for the

seventy sixers. Phoenix went back up by two on a Devin Booker step back for con Quirk Mos tied the game at one oh two or three minutes ago, but then Booker answered again, this time with another floater, and he would score to put the Sons up by three, one oh six to one oh three. Some more insurance came from Phoenix that made it a one o nine, one oh three game. The Sixers were turning into owl once again. Quark Mos. Sixers got a chance. They gotta

score here, they're down six. Josh Richardson with an owl and Orford for three over May just good Hartford Ports today and that makes it a three point game. But a couple more free throws from Devin Booker would be enough to ice this one for Phoenix. They win by five, one fourteen one on nine. Seventy six Ers shoot forty seven percent from the field, Phoenix fifty three percent. Sixers

thirteen three pointers. Sons hit eleven, but the Sixers just twelve of twenty from the free throw line, where his Phoenix was twenty one of twenty seven. Seventy Sixers lose the rebounding battle, a rarity on this young season. Minus two overall, despite winning the offensive rebounding battle plus four. Sixers had twenty turnovers, as did Phoenix, but here was a noteworthy gap. It was Phoenix scoring twenty three points off the Sixers turnovers, the Sixers nineteen points off of

Phoenix's twenty turnovers. Forty points for Devin Booker, now five straight games from him against the seventy Sixers with at least thirty points, twenty one for starting point man Ricky Rubio. He also had ten assists and seven rebounds. Al Horford's thirty two points to shy off his career high. He was thirteen to twenty from the field, five of eight from three, twenty four points and ten rebounds for Tobias Harris and fur Con Corkmiles and new career high with

twenty points. The seventy Sixers suffered their first loss of the season. There now five and one, Phoenix improves to five and two and up next for the seventy six ers eighty nine o'clock game on Wednesday night from Vivin Smartenhome Arena in Salt Lake City the Utah Jazz, a place where Utah has not lost this season. They're four and three Overall, they've lost their last two but three and oz In an always very tough place to play.

Salt Lake City, it's expected Joel and Bead will be back, and that of course sets up a premier big man matchup between him and two time Defensive Player of the Year from the Jazz Rudy Gobert. So long for now, one final time of the final score Phoenix Suns one fourteen seventy six Ers one O nine. You've been listening to Rewind, look out for fresh episodes the day after every seventy Sixers game this season.