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The 76ers are learning the harsh realities of life on the basketball court when Allen Iverson isn't whirling and twirling and driving and bombing away for his usual 28 points a night.
Without Iverson, who is sitting out with a bruised right knee, the Sixers know
they have to control the tempo, rebound well, and get scoring from their No.
1 option, Glenn Robinson, and his supporting cast.
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But the Sixers didn't do well in any of those areas last night in a fourth-quarter stretch that saw them blow an 11-point lead and fall to the Boston Celtics, 87-84, at the FleetCenter.
If Friday night's embarrassing loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers, who snapped
a 34-game road losing streak, was bad, this one was awful. It might have been
worse because of the Celtics' 16-0 run in the final quarter.
"A tough loss," Sixers coach Randy Ayers said. "For about four
to six minutes of the fourth quarter, we let the pace of the game get away from
us, and it really hurt us. They got some easy scoring opportunities, and it
really disrupted our rhythm.
"Before that, I thought we had control of the game. We just didn't execute
and do what we needed to do in the fourth quarter."
The Sixers had no solutions at either end during Boston's big run.
They couldn't stop the Celtics, who scored on seven of 10 possessions, with
two of the baskets three-pointers by Jiri Welsch, who finished with a career-high
22 points, and another a three by Walter McCarty.
And they couldn't score. They came up empty on nine consecutive trips downcourt,
missing seven shots and committing three turnovers.
The Sixers went 6 for 21 from the field in the fourth quarter. For the game,
Robinson went 2 for 10. The last of his four points came with 7 minutes, 22
seconds left in the second quarter. Eric Snow, although he picked up 10 assists,
missed nine of his 10 shots.
"We let them gain confidence," Snow said. "They made it a dogfight.
They made big threes when they had to, and they made their free throws. We just
didn't get it done when we had the lead. Glenn and myself didn't shoot well.
"I think you've just got to slow the game down. You've got to come down
and not take quick shots. Sometimes you get to the point where you want to run
clock, but you're not playing the same way. You've still got to push the ball
up and get easy opportunities if you can get them."
The Sixers did get some scoring. Aaron McKie led them with 24 points, going
4 for 7 from downtown. And rookie Kyle Korver made all five of his three-point
tries en route to a 6-for-6 night, scoring a career-high 18 points in 18 minutes.
Korver knocked down three straight treys in the final 3:04 of the third quarter
to give the Sixers a 65-57 lead. Early in the fourth period, his final trey
of the night, plus a basket by McKie, gave the Sixers a 70-59 lead with 9:57
to play.
When asked about Korver, Boston's Paul Pierce, who scored a game-high 31 points,
replied: "You mean Ashton Kutcher? He was unbelievable."
Korver, however, was replaced with 8:47 to play and didn't return until the
3:52 mark. He didn't take another shot.
"He was a little tired, so I just wanted to give him a blow and bring him
back later," Ayers said. "But [the Celtics] were starting to switch
[on defense], and there were a couple of plays that we didn't execute well."
"You never really want to come out of a game," Korver said, "but
it's all Coach's call."
Staring at a 75-70 deficit, the Sixers had a few gasps left. McKie's three-pointer
with 2:53 remaining capped a 7-0 spurt that put them up by 77-75. The Celtics
answered with their own 7-0 run and led by 82-77 with 39.3 seconds left.
The Sixers had one last chance to tie the score, but Korver couldn't get open,
and a defender switched out on Robinson. Snow passed to Derrick Coleman, but
the ball was tipped out of bounds by the Celtics with 0.2 seconds remaining.
That wasn't enough time to get off the long shot the Sixers needed to tie, and
they fell to 13-14, dropping out of first place in the Atlantic Division. They
are 1-3 in this latest stretch without Iverson and 3-3 without their all-star
overall.
"They stepped up and hit their shots, but it happens like that sometimes,"
Coleman said of the Celtics. "It's basketball. It's more momentum swings
than anything."
Notes. Ayers said that if he had to make an immediate guess about whether Iverson
would begin the Sixers' five-game road trip Friday, it would be no.
"It's so up in the air," said Ayers, who added that the team's medical
staff would give him a status report today.
Iverson missed his fourth straight game last night.
Billy King, the team's president and general manager, said that the Sixers would
check out forward Eddie Griffin, the native of Philadelphia who was waived Friday
by the Houston Rockets, but that it would be only as a matter of routine.
"We do that with everybody, whenever anybody gets waived," King said
without indicating whether the Sixers had any interest.
Griffin had been undergoing treatment for emotional problems at an undisclosed
facility from which he was released earlier this month. He faces charges in
connection with an alleged assault on a female acquaintance.
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