All-Star Break jitters

I hope everybody else out there has had a pleasant All-Star weekend. I personally ignored the weekend festivities in favor of a trip to Niagara Falls last night. Ahhh, Rickard's Red, you are so tasty. In any event, I managed to catch a few of Dwight Howard's dunks. I know a lot of people weren't fans of the "Superman" dunk because it wasn't actually a dunk, but I personally thought it was one of the cooler things I've even seen, and that's really the point of a dunk contest, isn't it?

With the second half of the season in mind, here's three things I feel the Sixers need to do to make the playoffs.

1. Keep Playing solid defense. This has been the reason for the team's resurrection. In this five game win streak, the Sixers have only allowed more than 90 points once (96 to the Wizards). When you're the fifth lowest scoring team in the league, you have to defend well every night to have a chance to win. I've said it in an earlier post, so I won't beat a dead horse, but the Sixers don't have the offensive weapons to allow a lot of points.

2. Get points from the power forward spot. If you had talked to me three weeks ago, this was the reason I'd tell you this team couldn't make a second half of the season run like the 76ers last year did. That team got some really good minutes and points from Joe Smith. That extra scoring made a huge difference in my opinion, especially when you consider how poor this team was with Reggie Evans at power forward. I like Reggie's energy, but the man's a horribly ineffective offensive player. It's not a coincidence that the Sixers turnaround has coincided with Thaddeus Young starting at power forward. Thad at act's like he might score a little bit. If the Sixers can get a combined 15-20 points a night from a combination of Thad, Jason Smith and Reggie, that will go long ways toward a winning second half of the season.

3. Get Andre Iguodala to play like he's in a contract year. 19.7 points , 5.6 rebounds and 4.7 assists per game. Those are pretty good numbers, but I think Iggy is capable of even more. More specifically, I want more in the fourth quarter. I've talked previously about how I want Andre to have that killer instinct. I know he's not Kobe Bryant, but I've always admired how Kobe is just tenacious in crunch time. He wants the ball and he knows he's going to make the shot to beat you. I would like to see Andre develop that. There isn't anybody on the court that is more dangerous with the ball than he is. I think part of me just wants to see him really demand the ball in those crunch scenarios. In any event, if he can have more nights like his 29 points output vs. Memphis on Wednesday, I'll be happy.

As far as the immediate future, it's the Timberwolves on Tuesday, and it's really a game the boys should win. The first five games after the break will tell a lot about where this team goes from here. There's games against New York and Miami, and two against Orlando. It's too early to look ahead too far, but they'll be off on a mini-West Coast swing after that, so it's important to win three or four of those five. And considering this team is 23-30, that won't be easy.

On the bright side, it looks like Jason Kidd is heading to Dallas. Fingers crossed on that one happening. Until next time.