Game Preview: San Antonio Spurs visit the Philadelphia 76ers

San Antonio Spurs vs Philadelphia 76ers

Wells Fargo Center
Date: 12/7/15, Time: 6:00 PM Spurs Time
TV: FSSW - RADIO: 1200 AM WOAI

So the Spurs survived the Celtics at home to improve to 17-4 and now go visit their old friend Brett Brown in Philly. The thing is, the 76ers are bad. Historically bad. They currently sit at 1-20. At a certain point you just have to feel bad for Philly fans. Things are so bad that the fans are keeping track of picks the team own from other teams and the  likelihood that they'll get to keep the picks and what might happen. It's probably more interesting than watching a 1-20 team. I don't really blame them. Philly is so young and so bad it's hard not to look at the future as the only place to spend some emotional capital. This is just another team to watch and remember how lucky we as Spurs fans are.

Speaking of the Spurs, they're still rolling along with stellar D and passable offense. Pop did some interesting things with the lineups against Boston Saturday night. Read Erler's recap for some points on that. The thing that most intrigued me was the fact that Pop appears to be trying to get Kyle Anderson some burn with the starters. Anderson, a hot take magnet here at PtR, has had some nice moments, but seemed lost early on. It'll be interesting if Pop can find a role for him going forward. It would make sense to see him get lots of playing time against Philly tonight.

The 76ers will look to feed their young Center/Power Forward and number 3 overall pick, Jahlil Okafor. He comes back tonight from his 2-game suspension.  He leads them in scoring and is 4th on the team in PER. I think there's a contingent of folks who think Philly may have ended up with the worst big man taken in the first 4 picks of last year's draft. There have been some off-the-court issues. But I think it's been the play on the court that's been concerning some Philly fans. Over at Liberty Ballers they have a great fan post addressing this issue.

76er fans do have reason to hope. Their team is crazy young. The oldest player is 25 (think about that, every player on their team was born in the 1990's). They do have a lot of draft picks in the next few years and they're likely to be picking pretty high in that time span. And hey, they just beat the Lakers. We as Spurs fans can always take games like this as a reminder of how great it has been and is to have Pop, Tim Duncan and everyone else who makes this team so much fun to root for year in and year out.

Matchup to watch: The young bigs of Philly might give the Spurs some issues. Can Old Man Riverwalk and crew keep Okafor and Nerlens Noel from dominating the game?  Something tells me yes. I look for the savvy veterans to teach the young guns a thing or two, including Boris Diaw and David West getting in on the act.

Game prediction: Spurs by 21.

For the 76ers fans' perspective, visit Liberty Ballers

As always, Tony must dominate Fisher.