This was Reggie Evans' way of saying thank you.

Even as the final buzzer sounded on the 76ers' 100-77 loss to the Detroit Pistons, the loss that ended their season, a good number of the announced 14,130 fans in the Wachovia Center stayed long enough to applaud.

They weren't applauding the awful loss, which ended the Eastern Conference quarterfinal series in six games. They were applauding a season that had been much more than they had ever expected.

Evans, who had given all he had all season, gave the only thing he had left. He gave the fans his shoes. He stopped at center court, pulled them off and tossed them into the stands.

And just like that, Kevin Ollie, Lou Williams, Willie Green, Rodney Carney, Jason Smith, most of them, followed suit.

"I just wanted to show my appreciation," said Evans, who completed his first season in Philadelphia after previous stops in Seattle and Denver. "They've been wonderful."

The Pistons were wonderful last night, too. The Sixers were not. They seemed overmatched by the team Andre Iguodala had called "the best in the East, by far," and they seemed overwhelmed by the demands of an elimination game.

The Pistons shot 58.2 percent and advanced to the second round, beginning tomorrow night against the Orlando Magic in Auburn Hills, Mich. They did it with Rip Hamilton and Chauncey Billups combining for 17-for-25 shooting, 44 points and 12 assists. They led by as many as 32 points. They scored the first 10 points of the night and never, ever looked back.

"Detroit showed why they are who they are," Evans said. "They treated this game like they were ready to move on. They did a great job of knocking down shots. The rim had to be at least 10 feet wide for them."

The rim the Sixers attacked must have looked more like a thimble. They shot 33.8 percent. None of them had more than four field goals. Iguodala had 16 points, and Andre Miller and Lou Williams had 11 each. Not what you would want in a closeout game.

"Based on how we started [the season], I think we came a far way," Iguodala said. "I don't think people expected us to get here. So, in that way, it was an accomplishment. But I always thought we had that fight in us . . . I don't know if everybody believed, but I believed that we had a shot to go to the playoffs."

"This is a great growing experience for them," Pistons coach Flip Saunders said. "Look at this team, where they were, where they are now. Mo [Sixers coach Maurice Cheeks] did a fabulous job."

Playing for the chance to play in a Game 7 turned out to be more than the Sixers could handle.

"They beat us from the start, from the second half of the fourth game to now," Cheeks said. "They showed the type of team they are. That's the reason why they've gone as far as they have. They understand situations, they understand circumstances. That's the essence of the series.

"It was a long night . . . but I'm proud of my team, the way we battled - certainly not tonight, but throughout the year. I just didn't think [the Pistons] could continue making the shots they did. We never got a run, never anything we sustained. Everything was sustained by them. They clamped down on us. Their defense was just suffocating."

The Pistons knew how they had won Games 4 and 5, and stayed with the plan.

"Our feeling was, we could jump out on them a little bit and maybe put a little bit of doubt in them," Saunders said. "And that is what you have to do as far as closing out games. One thing about players; we have been through enough closeout situations, so we know a little bit of what it takes."

On top of that, the Pistons took away virtually every Sixers option. Things that had worked during the season, even earlier in the series, were suddenly useless.

"I think they just got into a rhythm," Miller said. "They figured out what we wanted to do, where we wanted to go with the ball. Even if we ran around like chickens with our heads cut off, the experience factor over there is so great. They think as one."

Asked whether he could have expected a game like this, Miller smiled thinly.

"Look at the last couple," he said. "They've been blowouts."

Rookie Thaddeus Young said: "This is very difficult. "We were right there and had two games. We lost our last [three] and it was totally unexpected. We wanted to go out there, play hard and keep fighting, hopefully get the win. But it was the other way around."

Give the Sixers this, though: Once they got past their 18-30 start, they gave what they had just about every night. Last night, they had nothing left.

All they had was their shoes. *