No Mo Mo

Tonight in Philadelphia, the Sixers won Tony DiLeo's coaching debut, which isn't all that impressive, considering it was a home game against the Wizards. But it was still telling for the following points.

1) Sam Dalembert, who has been so bad that he was losing playing time left and right, played 33 minutes and pulled down 17 boards. In other words, he did what he's supposed to do.

2) Andre Miller took 4 shots in 38 minutes and had 12 assists to 2 turnovers. Again, what he's supposed to do.

3) By starting Willie Green at the 3 and getting good minutes out of Lou Williams, they had 37 points from the bench -- a plus six edge on the Wiz bench.

4) They shot 51.4% from the floor, mostly because they only took 12 shots from the three-point line -- always a good idea for this collection of talent.

5) They got to the line 35 times, and made 26. Compare that to the Wiz's 21, and that's a 12 point edge.

Add it all up, and it's a 15 point win where they were never in danger. It gets them to 10-14 for the year, and not very far at all from the top 8 in the conference, which is looking like another one of those .500 gets in moments.

Say this for Mo Cheeks; he's a remarkably decent man, and his rescue of the little girl during the Portland national anthem was one of the five best moments in the Association's history. He also is the best point guard in the history of the franchise, of course. But as a coach, there's no evidence that he got more out of his talent. It's also a matter of course that the new GM, Ed Stefanski, was going to make his own hire for the top spot.

Can they actually turn it around? Well, there are plenty of games left in the season, and making it into the top 8 shouldn't be impossible. On the other hand, it's very hard to imagine them having home court in the first round, or how they avoid Boston or Cleveland in the first round. It's also hard to see how that would win that series... and, well, DiLeo has never held a head coach job before. There's as much chance of them staying bad. But at least they made a move before it was too late.