NBA: Part II : Could the Sixers' season be over ?

The great Sixer teams of the 1980s and Piston teams of the 1990s won with less talent because they played great team defense, and an offensive style that featured a balanced scoring attack. When one player shoots so many shots and the game is close at the end, that player is invariably doubled or even tripled, so that someone who hasn’t shot the ball all night might end up taking the final shot of the game, as Charles Oakley did in the playoffs against the Knicks last season.

It used to happen to Jordan regularly before Pippen arrived, which is part of what enabled Jordan to acclaim the notoriety that he did. When a player can defy double and triple teams and still score 40 or 50 points, almost at will, as Jordan did, to lead his team to victory, yet never in the post-season before Scotty came onto the scene, his greatness becomes legendary. But the Bulls were only able to beat the Pistons in the playoffs, after several unsuccessful attempts, when Michael and Scotty became adept at functioning as a mechanism.

Isaiah Thomas learned how to walk that fine line, knowing when was appropriate to score and when was necessary to get teammates involved, which is why, primarily, they were able to handle the Bulls for so many years. Such is probably the most difficult lesson to learn for a player with the ability of Iverson, because, like Isaiah, he can do both exceptionally well. It has everything to do with judgment and experience.

The more people involved in the Sixer offense, the fewer opportunities there are, and more risky it becomes to double Iverson. But the one player, outside of Iverson, who gets his teammates involved is Ratliff. The Sixers’ defense accounts for 30% of their offense in terms of points off of turnovers, steals, and blocked shots. Marcus Camby has the same effect on the Knicks at both ends of the court, and on the glass, in particular. Great defense can be just as exciting as great offense. What’s more is that it’s defense that gets an entire team involved in the game. A blocked shot sparks other blocked shots, a fast break, a steal - all of it. A blocked shot is the most powerful catalyst in basketball, bar none - more potent than even a monster breakaway-dunk, which is why Bill Russell’s teammates own eleven rings. A blocked shot is anything but subtle.

The distribution of scoring can only transpire with Iverson scoring 40, if he shoots a high percentage and his teammates are able to put up a sufficient number of shots. In both of the Sixers' overtime wins, Iverson shot 50 %. Iverson’s one of the best in the game at breaking down a defense, drawing a double, and finding the open man. He could be the best point-guard in the game who does not play point. But when things get tight, Iverson usually reverts back to his point guard mentality, which should be of some comfort to Larry Brown.

There have been times, times when Geiger shot the ball at an extremely high percentage, hitting the open jumpers off of an Iverson double-team, times when the Sixers were unbeatable. But there are also those periods when Iverson takes every shot, with his teammates either crashing the boards or standing around.

But with Ratliff out, those offensive rebound numbers will certainly diminish. What’s most important is that a shot be taken in the offense, with little time left on the shot clock, and with multiple players touching the ball in the offensive set. When a shot is taken in the planned offense, it’s usually of the high-percentage variety, creating more offensive rebound opportunities, and open shots for supporting players like McKie and Geiger.

But with Geiger still sidelined, further augmenting the importance of Ratliff, both on the boards and in the defensive and offensive paint, his loss becomes even more significant. Invariably, with Iverson creating, rather than shooting, his team will shoot a higher percentage, because they will get better looks at the basket.

What made Thomas so effective is the fact that even as he was a scoring threat, he was not a predictable one. Thomas either established himself early to draw doubles and create open shots for teammates, or he took over in the 4th quarter, drawing fouls and hitting open shots that were there for him. In either case, he controlled the game.

I have a theory: because the Sixers have survived the losses of Geiger and Snow, continuing to win, the media has now assumed that Iverson has to be the reason, and must, therefore, be the best player in the game - “ The Answer."

But how soon they forget. In the 1999 playoffs, with everyone healthy, the Sixers went into Orlando and upset the favored Magic. Then they lost Ratliff. It seemed like they might have been able to survive without him, because they were hot, everyone was contributing and playing defense, and after all, Iverson's obviously their best player, right?

Wrong. They went in and got swept by the Pacers.

The down side to Iverson’s production is that when it’s nonexistent, they have to rely on team defense, which is why Theo Ratliff is, in my opinion, the most important Philadelphia 76er. Ratliff is the anchor of that defense. He makes everything else that the Sixers are able to do, possible. He’s like the critical link, the one domino that can’t fall, the unappreciated, subtle force that enables the whole system to function effectively. When a team has an inside, shot-blocking presence like Ratliff, it can afford to play an aggressive defensive style, taking chances on steals - which Iverson does, and which is why he leads the NBA in that category - without having to fear getting burned by an easy layup at the other end.

Theo is omnipresent when he’s on the court - he is always there, even when he’s not there, lurking in the foreground of a slasher’s subconscious. Again, I would liken his presence and the impact that he has on a game, to that of Marcus Camby. They’re both extremely active players, who ignite offensive runs with great shot blocks, tip-ins, even dunks off of missed shots on the offensive glass, and they’re both players who run the court and finish extremely well. They bring to the game all of the overlooked intangibles, changing the very manner in which it’s played, changing its very nature - how an opposing team will attack, for example.

You hear people like Bill Walton and Larry Bird sing the praises of Camby, because they understand the value of those intangibles. Teams are not going to be able to just drive the lane on the Sixers or the Knicks, expecting to get easy baskets. The harder a defense makes it for an opposing team to score, the more discouraged it gets. Great inside defense almost forces the opposition to play from the perimeter, which further decreases its shooting percentage. Not only does Ratliff change shots; he changes the way that an entire game is played. The invisible fear that he’s able to instill in the mind of opponents dictates the course of a game and a season. And not only will opposing teams adapt to his absence, but so too will his own team. How the Sixers adapt will decide their fate.

"They're not shot-blockers," said the Bucks' Ray Allen. "So now, we've got to take advantage of it. Without Theo, you're taking away the best defensive player in the league. I think that could make them more vulnerable."

The fact is that both the Sixers and supporting media are in for a rude awakening if the Sixers suffer a prolonged losing streak, with Iverson continuing to produce. It's going to be difficult to explain how the loss of Ratliff could have been so important, when Iverson was thought to have been the best player in the league - how the integrality of Ratliff to the Sixers’ success, to Iverson’s success, could have been so carelessly overlooked.

The Sixers will certainly struggle to survive without Ratliff, much less maintain their lead in the East. Anybody who follows this team knows that. Keeping the Ratliff injury hush-hush serves the Sixer cause well, because they don't want it to become an issue. Allen Iverson, who has in the past proven himself incapable of handling media pressure well, could find himself in the midst of overwhelming criticism if the Sixers suffer a second-half slide. But Iverson is honest in his assessment of Ratliff’s loss.

"Theo's an All-Star and he's helped us get so far with his success," he said. "You get worried now. It will be tough on us. If a guy scores a layup or an easy basket, everybody will feel like, if Theo was back there, it wouldn't have happened.”

The problem is that if the Sixers fall from first place in the East, the pressure on Iverson will mount, tension within the organization will cause fingers to point, mouths to run and tempers to flare. Brown and Iverson will attack one another in the media, and the team will fall apart - same old, same old. If the pressure envelops Iverson, causing him to feel as if he has to do more of his team’s scoring, the effect could snowball, polarizing the team.

Some might consider such prognostication premature, given the adversity that the Sixers have overcome thus far, to say that an injury to Ratliff could spell the end of the Sixers’ season, but I don’t know that without the top seed in the East the Sixers can make it the Finals. Facing the Knicks at Madison Square Garden in the playoffs won’t be anything like facing them there on opening night, when the Sixers beat the Knicks by 29 points.

The one member of the media who did do the issue proper justice, albeit belatedly, ESPN’s Mitch Lawrence, does believe that the loss of Ratliff could place the top spot in jeopardy for the Sixers.

“With Ratliff out for the next six weeks, if not lot longer, due to a stress fracture of the right wrist that yet may require surgery, it's going to be practically impossible for the Sixers to keep winning at their current pace. So much of their success has started at the defensive end, Ratliff's loss could even wind up costing them the top seeding in the East.”

The Knicks have a clear path now to the #1 Seed, and home court advantage in the Finals over the team that I believe will come out of the West with Tim Duncan healthy this season - the San Antonio Spurs. But the Knicks have to play at least .700 basketball for the duration of the season, which, with the relative weakness of their remaining schedule, is not at all improbable.

It’s a foregone conclusion that the Sixers will make the playoffs, but how the Sixers adapt to the loss of Ratliff will determine whether or not they will have any success in the playoffs, where every game should be close. Furthermore, the Sixer attack, sensitively dependent on Theo Ratliff, whose loss could be the impetus to a chaotic system that causes the team to adapt in a manner, favorable or unfavorable, dictating how it will fare in the playoffs this season - adopting a subtle change in style perhaps, favoring greater scoring over and above distributing from Allen Iverson - and ultimately governing disproportionately the latter phase of its evolution; the Sixer attack could suffer considerably given the variation in style that it will be forced to adopt absent Theo Ratliff.

Advantage Knicks.