Nov 6, 2013
AP Photo
The Philadelphia 76ers have finally lost after three straight wins, while the Golden State Warriors and Los Angeles Clippers made significant early statements with big offensive performances in Monday night’s NBA action.
Philadelphia Suffers First Defeat
The 76ers suffered their first setback in their bid for the 2014 NBA championship losing 110-90 to the Golden State Warriors. Evan Turner and Michael Carter-Williams continue to play pretty well each picking up 18 points in the contest, but there were finally some serious signs of the team that most people expected to reside in the Eastern conference’s basement this season.
The first couple of the weeks have still strongly suggested that Philadelphia is significantly better than the sub-20 win team that most people expected them to be. The play of Carter-Williams in the back-court has drastically changed the expected nature of this roster. There will be a few teams wondering how they let the former Syracuse star drop to 11th overall in last year’s draft. Meanwhile, Turner has shown a real desire to drive at the basket and is looking more and more like the player that got drafted second overall three years ago.
It’ll be very interesting to see how the 76ers get on over the course of the next week. They host the 0-3 Washington Wizards on Wednesday before tipping off against Kyrie Irving and the Cleveland Cavaliers in back-to-back match-ups later on.
LA Clippers Knock Down 137 Against Houston
Doc Rivers’ Clippers made an early season offensive statement against Dwight Howard and the Houston Rockets knocking down 137 points in a 137-118 win. LA did the major damage in the first half scoring a franchise record 76 points. Chris Paul’s strong start to the season continued while he got some pretty decent scoring help from J.J. Redick (26 points) and Jamal Crawford (21 points). It was also an encouraging game from the point of view of seeing Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan compete successfully against Houston duo Howard and Omer Asik.
The Clippers are now off to a 3-1 start and have won three in a row since that opening night loss to their in-city rivals the Lakers. The focus for this group cannot afford to purely be on regular season results though. Rivers is attempting to prepare this group for a serious playoff run in a Western conference that is pretty wide open still.
Don’t Sleep On Golden State
The Warriors have already shown pretty clear that it is dangerous to discount them from the discussion of serious Western conference contenders. It should be no surprise that they were the team that ended Philadelphia’s mini-winning streak to the start the season. Golden State has a set of elite weapons and there are very positive signs that Andrew Bogut is finding a role on this team once again and that offseason addition Andre Iguodala is finding his place both defensively and offensively. This team, which was pretty potent last season, might just be that little bit more dangerous in 2013-14.
It is very early days, but with positive signs from the Clippers and the early return of Russell Westbrook to Oklahoma City’s line-up, the Warriors will be pleased with the way they have started the year.
