Philly Sports Today

While Wing Bowl 17 was the highlight of the Philadelphia sports calendar on Friday, the Flyers and Sixers gave Philly fans something else to cheer about as both Wachovia Center residents were victorious. Despite the fact that the Flyers were badly outshot and had to kill off nine Tampa Bay power plays, you certainly couldn’t tell by looking at the final score. The Flyers made the most of their scoring opportunities and rolled to a 6-1 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning. On the other side, the Sixers didn’t play their best basketball, but they also didn’t play a good team. The Sixers jumped out to a big lead in the first quarter and held on for a 104-94 win over the Washington Wizards.

Let’s start with the Flyers, who absolutely exploded offensively in the second and third periods. During the first period, Tampa outshot Philly 16-10, but it only wound up being 1-1 on the scoreboard. Mike Richards scored the opening goal of the night, but former Flyer Vaclav Prospal converted a power play goal to tie the game at 1-1. The Flyers took control of the game in the second period when Randy Jones netted a power play goal and Richards once again rattled the cage to push Philly’s lead to 3-1. The third period was when it got really ugly. The Lightning outshot the Flyers 15-11, but couldn’t get one past Antero Niittymaki. Meanwhile, the Flyers were wearing out the red light. Scott Hartnell scored his 18th goal of the year sandwiched between Jeff Carter’s 31st and 32nd goals.

Niittymaki was brilliant in net, stopping 41 of Tampa’s 42 shots. However, Tampa goalie Mike Smith had a very rough night and only turned away 24 of the 30 shots that he faced.

After a rough start to the second half of the year, it was nice to see them bounce back with a blowout win. However, getting outshot by a bad team and allowing nine power plays is very unnerving for the prospects of a playoff run. They still need to figure out how to correct both of those major flaws.

There’s no rest for the weary as the Flyers return to the ice tonight when they hit the road to take on the St. Louis Blues.

Let’s Go Flyers!

Now onto the Sixers, who were kind of lucky that they didn’t blow their game against Washington last night because they didn’t play particularly well except in the first quarter where they took a 32-17 lead before allowing the Wizards to cut it to only 4 points heading into the fourth quarter. However, the Sixers did enough in the final frame to preserve a 104-94 win.

Andre Iguodala once again paced the Sixers with 20 points, 4 rebounds, and 4 assists. Willie Green finally played well and gave me a reason to mention him again by scoring a season-high 20 points and dishing out 5 assists. Thaddeus Young was also pretty solid with 18 points and 9 boards, while Andre Miller did a little bit of everything (6 points, 9 assists, 6 rebounds). Louis Williams continued to provide a scoring punch off the bench with 14 points to go along with 7 assists and 2 blocks. Elton Brand also came off the bench for the fourth consecutive game. Brand had 9 points, 3 rebounds, and 4 blocks. Marreese Speights (8 points and 2 boards), Reggie Evans (3 points and 7 rebounds), and Royal Ivey (6 points) all played limited minutes, but still were nice contributors. On the injury front, Samuel Dalembert sprained his ankle late in the first half, but still wound up playing tonight against New Jersey.

Antawn Jamison led the Wizards with a monster 25 point, 15 rebound performance. Caron Butler also had a solid night with 20 points, 5 assists, 3 rebounds, and 2 steals, while Dominic McGuire scored a career-high 16 points to go along with 5 rebounds, 3 assists, a steal and a block. Off the bench, Javaris Crittenton played his best game of the season was Washington’s only real contributor off the bench. Crittenton poured in a season-high 15 points while collecting 7 dimes, 4 boards, and 2 swipes. Other than that, the Wiz didn’t really get much from anyone else on their roster.

With the win the Sixers moved one game above .500 for the first time since November 23rd. The Sixers will look to improve their record to two games above .500 for the first time all season when they host the New Jersey Nets. It should be a good one.

Go Sixers!