Struggling Sixers searching for answers

This being the NBA, there is going to be some form of drama attached to any team that seems to inexplicably hits the skids. So as a 20-9 start and a four-game lead in the Atlantic Division has devolved intoa 9-18 nightmare—capped by a lifeless 103-79 loss to the Celtics here at TD Garden on Sunday—the Sixers are now in danger of slipping out of the East playoffs altogether.

This leads to the usual litany of team-in-trouble rumors: looming lineup shuffling, players worrying about the coach losing his team, intralocker-room schisms. The Sixers have encountered all three in recent weeks. A team meeting can’t be far behind.

But while there is an impulse to look for off-court team turmoil to explain swoons like those being experienced by the Sixers, the truth of what’s going on in Philly probably has more to do with run-of-the-mill realities. The Sixers are young, and struggle badly in close games. They benefitted from an early schedule that started with a five-game road trip, then saw them play 18 of their next 22 at home.

They were also boosted by a relatively stable roster that carried them through the post-lockout thicket that so many other teams were not prepared to handle.

Power forward Elton Brand even suggested that he knew there could be slippage ahead after the team’s hot start. “I knew it was definitely possible,” Brand said. “Even when we were 20-9, you don’t want to speak upon making the playoffs unless you’re 20 games up or something like that. Anything can happen in this league.”

That’s not to say they didn’t play well in that span—just that, as they are not really quite as bad as they’ve been lately, they weren’t as good as their record suggested at the time. They thrived on effort and defense, and as other teams have rounded into shape, the Sixers’ weak offense has been exposed. They struggle badly in close games, an indication of poor fourth-quarter execution. In their last three games, things have gone particularly bad, as the Sixers have averaged just 79.7 points and shot 40.3 percent.

You can’t really point to one player as to why the Sixers are struggling to score. There are only two Sixers rotation players—Elton Brand and Evan Turner—who have better scoring averages after the All-Star break than they had before. Injuries to centers Spencer Hawes and Nikola Vucevic didn’t help, and their scoring averages have both dropped by about two points since the break. It also doesn’t help that, as the Sixers have floundered offensively, forward Andre Iguodala (a first-time All-Star this season) has not stepped forward to fill the scoring gap. Iguodala once averaged 19.9 points for the Sixers, but he is down to just 12.0 this year, his worst scoring output since he was a rookie.

“It’s a challenge,” forward Thaddeus Young said. “We didn’t expect to be in this situation. But we just need to go out and get back to playing how we were in the beginning. We know we’re a better team than this, we just got to show it.”

That’s the tough part here for Philadelphia. If this is a team capable of turning things around and giving itself a chance to play like it did in the first part of the year, there is precious little time to do so. And the Sixers have now put a lot of pressure on themselves—even making the playoffs will be difficult. While the Sixers are carrying a four-game losing streak, the Celtics are rolling and now own a comfortable three-game lead in the division. The loss dropped the Sixers into a tie with the Knicks (winners of 11 of their last 14) and left them just a game ahead of the surging Bucks.

The Sixers play eight of their final 10 games on the road, where they have gone just 10-15.

They play the Nets on Tuesday, which is hardly a gimme win. “We’ve got to try to find a way to win a game,” coach Doug Collins said. “That’s all. I told our guys, the next game we win is going to be the toughest game we win all season. We’ve got to keep fighting and fighting and find a way and have some good things happen for us. That Atlanta win (the Sixers’ last win) seems like it was two months ago. It was nine days. That’s how these losses lay in your gut. We’re going to have to try to find a way to win that next game.”

Brand remains hopeful.

He laughs off suggestions about locker room divides or Collins’ status, because the reality of the Sixers’situation is that a serious crash-and-burn could be ahead, and simply avoiding that will be something for the Sixers to be happy about.

“Should be exhilarating,” Brand said. “It’s tough, it’s fun, our backs are against the wall. We just have to step up now. We’re tied with the Knicks, the Knicks got the tiebreaker, we got a brutal schedule but, it should be fun. We’ve got to break out of this slump, and you take the good with the bad. This is definitely the bad right now but our next win, whenever that is, it’s going to feel really good.”