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Sixers played ten minutes of embarassing basketball, had a nice reaction that lasted around four minutes, which was followed by thirtyfour, painful minutes of garbage time.

That’s the short story of the 113-95 loss at Orlando, that put us at 34-35 (.493). Call it “reality check”, “awakening”, “step back” etc etc, that’s it.

And don’t get fooled by the boxscore, the game was NOT that ‘close’ (LOL).

Sixers were completely outplayed basically from start to finish and in every possible way.

It started 4-0 with two dunks by Dwight Howard, both off Nelson’s assists, then 12-4 with Magic hitting all of their first five shots, then 20-6, then 25-8 when Evans (it was Maurice, don’t worry…) knocked down the fifth three pointer out of five attempts for the Magic, in your typical “pick your poison” situation.

Either Howard was getting a dunk or an easy basket (see the picture) or one of Orlando perimeter players was draining an open jumper.

Sixers defense was simply non existent, while the offense was atrocious, with missed layups, forced plays resulting in turnovers or offensive fouls (a ton of them, for the whole game), various bricks.

After the center put Magic up by twentytwo with an “and one” play (33-11 with 2.46 left !!) Sixers had a little reaction, sparked by Reggie Evans and Lou Williams, to close the quarter on a 8-0 run (33-19), that became 12-0 at the beginning of the second (33-23).

Nevermind: Orlando went on its own 8-0 run and the game was over at 41-23, 7.12 left. Good night. The rest of the game was so ugly for us that it’s not even worth reporting, with deficits always around the 30 point mark.

Just few flashes to give you the idea:

* how about four fouls in one single Magic possession, three of them on Dalembert ? It happened in the second quarter

* how about an airball by Iguodala immediately after the aforementioned three point play by Howard that gave the Magic a 22 point lead in the first?

* how about Iguodala, Green and Carney (“shooting” guards….) combining for 0/6 on free throws in three different trips to the line? My feeling is Sixers need an exorcist to solve this problem, more than a coach.

I would like to add some points:

1) Lou Williams was the top scorer but he played a HORRIBLE game in my opinion, going many times one-on-five, showing selfishness and poor basketball IQ at the same time. Mo has to talk to the guy, seriously.

I don’t know how many possessions ended with him taking an ill advised shot with nobody else even sniffing the ball… Yeah, he sparked that little run and eventually filled the stat sheet but he was detrimental to the TEAM at the end of the day. Awful.

2) Green played one of his old “garbage time” games, with his good part of forced shots, missed layups, offensive fouls. Terrible.

2) Iguodala & Miller were on the same, subpar level: you look at the boxscore and you think they weren’t so bad, but they were nowhere to be found when it counted.

3) Dalembert got embarassed one more time by Dwight Howard, who buried the game playing less than 23 minutes (LOL). I guess Howard bounced back after the poor performance vs Wizards. Sam, to put it simple, can’t guard him playing one-on-one.

In general, I noticed NO CIRCULATION, POOR SPACING, LACK OF EXECUTION, that was one of the reason for the many turnovers and offensive fouls: our guys didn’t know what to do with the ball and stubbornly continued trying to drive to the basket, even when the defense didn’t allow it.

Let’s not even talk about what happened in OUR half court: 14/23 from behind the arc for the Magic, 53% on field goals should be enough.

Reggie Evans was the best Sixer last night, but of course he can’t singlehandedly lead us anywhere: he can be the spark, but then fire should follow, by the team.

Ouh, one more thing: officiating was really bad. Needless to say, it had NOTHING to do with our loss.

SIXERS4GUIDOS BONUS STATS AND RANDOM THOUGHTS

Speaking of embarassment, we let Pat Garrity score on a low post move… – Our first defensive possession after half time wasn’t bad either: we were supposed to play some full court pressure but allowed Turkoglu to drive all the way to our basket, where he stopped and assisted Rashard Lewis for an easy jumper. Nice way to change momentum after the break – The mighty JJ Redick found a way to turn the ball over three times in garbage time – Shavlik Randolph scored his first points of the season, the only good note in the night – Guys over at Third Quarter collapse are probably drooling at the idea of finding us in the first round of the playoffs: Magic closed the regular season series 3-1, with all the wins coming in form of blowouts.

Let’s turn the page quickly: Sixers meet the Nets tonight and have a chance to show this one was only “one of those nights” vs one of our rivals for a playoffs spot.