In today's episode of the Sixers beat Rich and I go over the Sixers convincing win over the Dallas Mavericks, what our concern level is about the defense and what to expect in the upcoming back-to-back against the Toronto Raptors and the Miami Heat.

Enjoy the podcast.

All right.

Welcome, everybody.

This is Derek Bodner, joined by Rich Hoffman, who is not here to look cute, dribbling basketball.

How you doing, Rich?

Derek, I'm good.

I think it's good that last time we did a pod,

the Sixers were generally riding high,

but unfortunately we did it after pretty bad loss, I would say.

It's been a kind of an up and down week,

but we're doing it after probably their best wins since then. So, you know, everything evens out here. Yeah. And I guess real quick context for that quote. That was a quote from George Deng after last night's win. He was basically asked, how do you have, how did you develop the confidence to continue shooting even when you're in a slump? And he was like, well, I canbble so i better shoot that's the only way good things will happen which not wrong but you just don't

usually see people that uh that honest about their own ability it was a good line george is good for a good

line especially after one anyway the uh the game was a 11 to 101 win over the dallas mavericks

who had come in playing pretty well i think they were eight and 2 in their last 10 games, something of that sort, with a bunch of pretty strong wins, yeah. A team that always surprised me when I look at it because they're like the fifth or sixth-ranked defense in a league and you look at their roster and you said, that shouldn't be the case, but they are playing really well for Jason Kidd. And the Sixers came in there and executed pretty well, especially there. You know, they had their runs. They got off to a slow start. I thought the Embedd-Hardin sort of pick and roll game got them going. And then in the third quarter, the Sixers Zone and James Hardin just looking like James sarden and he hasn't that hasn't always been the case but he really took over there in the third quarter, the Sixers Zone and James Hardin just looking like James Hardin. And he hasn't, that hasn't always been the case, but he really took over there in the third and propelled them. It was like a good, a very good win for them, for sure. It was. Let's just talk about Hardin because I think there were two stretches that stood out to me, the one at the end of the second quarter where it was a lot of Hardin

and Bid pick and roll getting the Sixers back in the game.

And then at the end of the third beginning of the fourth quarter, it was Hardin with the

backup unit, much maligned DeAndre Jordan backup unit for good reason.

Where Hardin was, I mean, dude, he was a fucking maestro. Where Hardin was...

I mean, dude, he was a fucking maestro.

That was really impressive.

Like, scoring in every way possible.

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