Inside Practice - 11/2/2009

The Philadelphia 76ers hit the court again after a day off yesterday, following the conclusion of their first week of action this season in which they rounded out the week with a 2-1 mark and posted some staggering offensive numbers.

The Sixers lead the league in field goal percentage, having hit a blistering 52% of their shots from the field (122-232), while the team's 81.1% shooting from the charity stripe is good for the fifth best free throw percentage in the NBA. Buoyed by off-season acquisition Jason Kapono, as well as Lou Williams and Andre Iguodala, the Sixers are shooting 36% from the three-point line, 11th best in the league.

All this adds up to an Eastern Conference best 115.3 points per game, which is second in the league overall behind only the Phoenix Suns. For perspective, the gap between the Sixers and the lowest scoring team in the East is a staggering 35.3 points per game.

"The Orlando game is out of our system and we're building off of our last two wins," forward Elton Brand said after practice today, fresh off a productive 16-point, seven-rebound effort against the Knicks. He added that he does "feel more comfortable in both the offense and defense and ready to continue to play well."

Among those playing well is the newest member of the Sixers starting line-up this season, guard Lou Williams. To date, Williams has provided what Head Coach Eddie Jordan termed "great demeanor, great body language and a calm," which has certainly reflected on the court in terms of production. Williams has an assist-to-turnover ratio of 7.5-to-1, while averaging 20.3 points, 5.3 rebounds and 5.0 assists per game, which could be a by-product of the team-oriented design of Coach Jordan's motion offense.

"The offense is not just on him," Jordan said of Williams. "But he has been keeping us organized out there."

Organized to the point that Williams has so few turnovers this year, he is able to discuss them one-by-one, as he did for his lone turnover against the Knicks.

"[Jason] Kapono did such a great job of getting open that I wanted to reward him," Williams explained. "But I'm not really a stats guy, I'm just conscious of keeping my turnovers down."

And while the Sixers and their guard keep their turnovers down, they pressure opponents into coughing it up. Philadelphia is one of just five teams averaging more than nine steals a game, currently fifth in the league at 9.33 picks per game. Meanwhile, they're pulling down 5.33 more rebounds per game than their opponents, the third best differential in the NBA.

BOSTON UP NEXT

With the 4-0 Celtics on deck this Tuesday at 7:00 p.m., the Sixers know that they need to not only rely on their offense, but focus on the defensive end of the floor, as well.

"We want to take the positives out of what we did to build that lead [in New York] and build on that," forward Andre Iguodala said. "Our offense has to be on point, but our struggle has been on pick-and-roll defense so we focused on that."

Otherwise, Iguodala has been posting impressive all-around numbers through the first games of the season: 19.7 points, 8.3 rebounds, 6.7 assists and 2.0 steals (the latter three categories are team-highs, while he trails Williams by only 0.6 points per game) on 47.7% shooting from the field. But against the Celtics, Iguodala said it will be up to the entire team to "play a key role" i a game like this, as well as use what they've already seen to prepare.

"Every game this year has been against a team that likes to shoot it from the outside," Iguodala said of preparing for yet another team with similar traits. "We've seen a lot of different scenarios, but we know what they can bring to the table."