Pistons pummel listless Sixers
PHILADELPHIA — No excuses. It’s how coach Doug Collins worded this one, on two occasions, during his postgame press conference. It’s how Jrue Holiday reasoned the 76ers should pick themselves up after this.
The Sixers didn’t hand- pick this one, a 94- 76 loss to Detroit, as a letdown game. It found them.
“I was just in there talking to Rod ( Thorn), Josh ( Harris) and Tony ( DiLeo),” Collins said of his team’s upper management, “and in their words, it’s one of the few times since I’ve been the coach of this team that we’ve played with a lack of effort.
“I have no idea ( why). We had a great practice ( Tuesday). We played against a team that’s desperate — 0- 8. I have no idea why. I really don’t. I don’t know how many times I asked the coaches sitting on the sideline, ‘ What’s going on?’ I had no idea. We were in slow motion.”
Collins’ crew assembled its poorest showing of the season in falling Wednesday to Detroit, which ended a franchise- worst, seasonopening losing streak at eight games, and at the Sixers’ expense. To follow up a three- win road trip, the Sixers have lost the first two in a five- game homestand.
This one had ugly written all over it.
The Sixers missed 59 shots. They shot 29.8 percent, a record for inadequacy in this building. They had 38 rebounds, to the 57 hauled in by the Pistons, owners of the league’s worst rebounding differential. “They were playing volleyball on the backboards,” Collins said of the Pistons.
A cascade of boos flowing from the rafters greeted the Sixers with more than three minutes remaining in the second quarter, and fol- lowed them into the locker room and throughout the duration of the second half.
The boos were deserved. The Sixers didn’t hustle. They didn’t defend. They didn’t rebound. They didn’t … do much of anything, really.
“We can’t blame anybody,” said Holiday, who had 12 points and seven assists. “We can’t blame the crowd. We can’t blame the coach. Sometimes you’ve just got to look in the mirror. Only person we can blame is ourselves.
“You see someone’s beating up on you, or punking you, you’re supposed to hit back. We didn’t have that today. And after a while, when we tried to, everything was going their way.”
The Pistons’ interior players, Greg Monroe and Jason Maxiell, had a field day against the Sixers’ weak front line. Monroe had a robust 19- point, 18- rebound, sixassist performance, while Maxiell coupled eight points with 12 points.
Put it this way: Monroe and Maxiell combined for 30 boards, eight fewer than the Sixers had as a team.
In an attempt to slow down that Detroit duo, the Sixers got 13 minutes from Kwame Brown, in the veteran center’s first game back after a five- game break with a left calf strain. But even he was overmatched with the Pistons’ post players.
“We don’t have much size on the front line,” Collins said. “Kwame came back and gave us some minutes, but we’re small. Evan ( Turner) and Spencer ( Hawes) are small. We just don’t have much physicality, and that definitely hurts.
“That’s a physical front line and they picked us apart. They threw the ball wherever they wanted to.”
The only good news for the Sixers came from the trainers’ room, with Dorell Wright not having to miss more than a few minutes of action due to a chin laceration. The forward got eight stitches and returned to the floor.
The Pistons swelled their firsthalf lead to as many as 18, at 52- 34, heading into halftime. Detroit used a 14- 4 run midway through the second. More critically for the Sixers, they permitted eight of those 14 points off offensive rebounds for Detroit.
While the Sixers were struggling to hit shots, the Pistons couldn’t find a way to miss. And when they did, they cleaned up after themselves.
“It was frustrating, you know? That was pretty apparent. There’s no denying that,” said Hawes, who meandered through 15 ineffective minutes. “There’s no excuse for the effort we came out with, or lack thereof. We’ve got some stuff to work on.”
Practice can cure shooting woes or hitches in mechanics. There’s no telling if this morning’s session at PCOM, which figures to be a lengthy one, will have an effect on the Sixers’ effort.
“I have no answers why we were so flat,” Collins said. “No idea.”