Many Sixer followers pined for North Carolina point guard Ty Lawson, who was selected by the Minnesota Timberwolves with the pick after the Sixers and eventually moved to the Nuggets.
With normal starter Chauncey Billups sidelined with a groin strain, Lawson has had to assume a starter's role for coach George Karl. In Saturday's win at Utah, Lawson had perhaps his best game as a pro, posting a career-high tying 23 points, a career-high nine assists and a career-high three steals in 38 minutes.
For the season, Lawson is averaging 8.8 points and 3.6 assists in 22 minutes per game. Last night was his fourth straight start, and he again was good for 23 points and nine assists in the Nuggets' 108-105 loss to the Sixers. Lawson has shown nice progression for the Nuggets, though Karl wasn't ready to sing his praises just yet.
"I'm happy, but I'm not ready to jump totally on the bandwagon," said Karl. "He's still a young player."
Like his mentor Larry Brown, Karl isn't exactly a young player's dream coach, as he has been hesitant in the past to give a lot of minutes to rookies. "I'm playing the guy an awful lot of minutes for hating young players," Karl quipped. "I think he's important to us. And how I manage him and how we manage each other is very important to how well we're going to do this year."
In his three straight starts without Billups before last night's game, Lawson had averaged 17 points and totaled 19 assists to just six turnovers.
The Nuggets were also without star forward Carmelo Anthony, who missed his second straight game with a right knee contusion. With Anthony and Billups out, the Nuggets were missing more than 47 points of the 106.8 they average a game.
Green back
Willie Green was activated before last night's game for the first time since missing three games after twisting his left ankle against the Utah Jazz on Dec. 26.
"It's feeling a lot better, it's not feeling 100 percent but it good enough for me to go out and play competitive, play hard and try to give the team a lift," said Green, who played 21 minutes and scored nine points to go with six assists. "When I did it I didn't know the extent of the injury. But it's at that point now where I can go out and play on it."
On Iverson
When asked for his thoughts on guard Allen Iverson being the second-highest vote-getter in the Eastern Conference for the Feb. 14 All-Star game in Dallas, coach Eddie Jordan said: "I don't pay attention to it."
Jordan did offer a comment when asked if he thought the team would keep Iverson for the rest of the season, thus guaranteeing him a contract: "I expect him to [stay]. Nothing's been etched in stone, but I think it's gonna happen.
"His performance has been very good for us, on the floor and off the floor, in the locker rooms, in the huddles. He's been great for us, he really has been."
The Sixers have until Wednesday to decide whether they are going to keep Iverson around. It would be surprising if they didn't. The diminutive guard gives the team a presence that seems to be much needed. *
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