The 76ers had been great for two months, and two months is a long, long time in the NBA. Maintaining an edge sharp enough to go 19-5 and beat every team of consequence takes a lot out of you. It's a mental drain much more than a physical one. Once that edge gets rounded, losing often follows. And this is not the time for losing.

The Sixers have dropped five of their last eight games, after blowing a six-point fourth-quarter lead to the Wizards, who steamrolled them in the final 12 minutes last night en route to a 109-93 victory. That meant the end of dreams of reaching the fifth seed in the East and playing Cleveland in the first round.

Hello, Pistons or Dwight Howard, and before you talk about the victory over Detroit on Wednesday, remember that four of the Pistons' five starters didn't play a second in the fourth quarter, and have collectively played 99 postseason games in the last five years, which is more than the Sixers' entire roster (95 games) has in its collective career (49 of those 95 belong to Kevin Ollie and Calvin Booth).

Anyway, that has nothing to do with last night's affair, which exposed all the problems the 76ers have when they can't turn the opposition over and get out and run. They ran Washington off the floor in the first half, but when it became a half-court affair, the Sixers blinked.

Maurice Cheeks had said before tip-off that the game would have the feel of a playoff tilt, and he was right, because his team played great in the first quarter, decent in the second and third quarters, and awful in the fourth (shooting just 1 of 15 from the floor). That's what young teams usually do in the postseason.

"The players felt it was going to be that kind of atmosphere," Cheeks said afterward. "Playoff basketball is a physical game. . . . You're not going to get the fastbreaks that we got" early.

He was right, because great players take over in the playoffs. That's what Gilbert Arenas did in the fourth. Just like the Flyers were victimized by a great player - the Capitals' Alexander Ovechkin - in the final minutes of Game 1 of their series Friday, the Sixers were overwhelmed by Arenas, who was playing on a surgically repaired knee and with about 80 percent of the wind he normally has.

Arenas is on a 24-minute limit, but the Wizards needed the game, so they let him play 25. He made the most of them, scoring 20 points, with seven rebounds and five assists, slicing up the Sixers from everywhere on the floor. He scored the first seven points of the fourth in a minute and 33 seconds, and when he had Philly's defense on its heels, he turned passer, hitting Andray Blatche for one layup, Antawn Jamison for two, and getting the hockey assist on a third.

"Gilbert did Gilbert," Lou Williams said, accurately and succinctly.

"Some things you come to expect from Gilbert," he said. "He made some great shots over our team. But for him to take over the way he did was not good for us."

But the good thing about Cheeks' team is that it doesn't know what it doesn't know, so probably won't be intimidated by what is about to transpire in the playoffs, when the game slows to a walk and the referees put their whistles away and the team that executes best with the shot clock on its back usually wins.

"When I first came in the league," the Wizards' Antonio Daniels said, "I was like, how much can it change? How much can it really change? But when you walk into the arena, it's a totally different feeling. It doesn't feel like any of the other 90 games [including the preseason] that you've played in that season."

There is nothing that has happened over the last 10 days that can't be corrected, but the signs are troubling, and history is unforgiving.

For those two terrific months, the only team hotter than the 76ers was Houston, which ripped off 22 victories in a row and then promptly pratfalled - not because the players suddenly forgot how to play, but because they had worked themselves into a frenzy trying to keep the streak going. Once it finally ended, they didn't have much left emotionally in the tank. The Rockets have recovered, but they needed a couple of weeks to do it.

The 76ers have one week.