A day after knocking down the San Antonio Spurs at home the Sixers continued their winning ways by defeating the Minnesota Timberwolves on Saturday night by a score of 107-87.

And Doug Collins has now become Abe Lincoln.

"Did you say Hey Blinkin'?"

The Sixers improved to 26-28 on the season after toppling the 13-41 T'Wolves. Despite facing a less-lofty challenge as the night before, Doug Collins knew he couldn't let his squad rest easy on Kevin Love and his wolf-pack. "I don't know if we could've won this game earlier in the year after a big win," Collins told the media after the game. "I used an Abe Lincoln line before the game … Abe Lincoln always said you don't judge a man in adversity, everybody's humble then, you judge him when you give him power."

On face value Collins is talking about maintaining his team's determination following the win over the Spurs ... but he also could be speaking of himself. If he keeps flashing that humble smile after every win he'll finish the season by resting his top hat on the Coach of the Year Award.

The Sixers' next hairy match-up comes in the form of The Memphis Grizzlies on Tuesday. It won't be long before the All Star Break, and then we'll see who's left holding the reigns.

Sixers win their third straight.

The Sixers have agreed to terms with their seventh head coach since the end of the Larry Brown era - Doug Collins has reportedly agreed to a 4 year deal with financials still unknown.

The Sixers and GM Ed Stefanski interviewed quite a few candidates in their search, but ended up settling on the guy they pretty much wanted from the start.  Since the firing of Eddie Jordan, it's been widely considered that Collins was the front runner for the position.


I'm glad the deal is done and Collins can immediately begin preparing for the upcoming season. It's encouraging that a guy who had a cushy job at TNT even wanted to come to the Sixers - a team in certain rebuild-mode. But good karma was awarded and now he gets to coach the second pick in the 2010 draft (PleaseBeEvanTurner,PleaseBeEvanTurner).

Collins is a guy who will coach defense and fundamentals - two things the Sixers of 2009 knew diddly-poo about. A team that plays solid defense will go a long way to adding some points to the win column. Now, don't be fooled, Collins isn't a "great" coach. But at this current point in time, he's about as good as anybody else available to coach a young team with glaring flaws.

As for drawbacks - I'd have to say that it’s Collins' propensity to slow the game down. If nothing else, the Sixers squad is athletic and when they pushed the ball under Mo Cheeks, good things happened. Don't expect too much of that. Collins runs a very deliberate offense. Lots of play calling and not much running the floor. In all of Collins previous seasons coaching, not one of his teams finished higher than 4th worst in the league at number of possessions.  Collins has been out of coaching for a while, so maybe his philosophies have changed a bit.  He's at least stayed in touch with today's game and today's players through his television commentating .  We'll see how that translates to his coaching style.

All in all, my final verdict is that this was a solid choice for the team. And more importantly, we will never have to see the shit-show that was the Princeton Offense.  Ever