Skip to content
Link copied to clipboard

Rich Hofmann: A lid on young Sixers' confidence?

THE LID ON the basket was soldered in place, and there was nothing the Sixers could do to pry it open. For nearly 5 minutes at the end of the fourth quarter last night, from 4:52 to 0:05.9, they missed 11 consecutive shots.

Spencer Hawes watched his teammates miss 11 straight shots in a key fourth quarter stretch. (Steven M. Falk/Staff Photographer)
Spencer Hawes watched his teammates miss 11 straight shots in a key fourth quarter stretch. (Steven M. Falk/Staff Photographer)Read more

THE LID ON the basket was soldered in place, and there was nothing the Sixers could do to pry it open. For nearly 5 minutes at the end of the fourth quarter last night, from 4:52 to 0:05.9, they missed 11 consecutive shots.

For the masochists in the crowd, in order:

Jodie Meeks, 19 feet; Meeks, 26 feet; Thad Young, 6 feet; Lou Williams, 11 feet; Elton Brand, 14 feet; Williams, 20 feet; Jrue Holiday, 24 feet; Brand, 16 feet; Young, 3 feet; Williams, 25 feet; Meeks, 24 feet.

Most of them were pretty clean looks by NBA standards. A couple were seriously contested. One or two probably should have been whistled for fouls against the Oklahoma City Thunder. But the amalgamation of misses, however you choose to characterize them, turned a seven-point Sixers lead into a three-point deficit. Then, with 15.9 seconds left, a bad turnover by Williams turned a prayer for a comeback into pffft.

"I thought we got good looks," Williams would say, after the 92-88 final score had been posted. "I think the ball just dried up at the end. Guys weren't able to really throw the ball in. But the 11 misses in a row, I think they were all good looks."

And so it goes for the team that has yet to learn to clear the final hurdle. And so it goes for coach Doug Collins, who said, "We're growing. We're learning. It's frustrating. But we're going to keep fighting."

We have seen this before with the Sixers, over and over and over: close game, quality opponent, can't close it out. It is the skill that they have been unable to master. They are a team that the city has grown to like a lot: young, hardworking, defense-playing, showing up every night. This was that game, too. Despite being crushed on the boards, the Sixers still held the high-scoring Thunder to 92 points. Again, despite being slaughtered on the boards, they held the Thunder to 38.5 percent shooting and did not get caught up in the kind of running game that would have killed them.

They were there. They were right there. And then they weren't, with shot after shot after shot going clank in the night.

"Those are shots we usually take, we usually make," Holiday said.

"We've got to keep shooting the ball," Andre Iguodala said. "We've got to keep working to get better shots for each other."

They have to do all of that, while simultaneously fighting against the notion that so many defeats like this one will chip away at their collective fortitude.

Before the game, Collins was talking about how he couldn't sleep during the All-Star break as he fretted over his team, which entered the break on a five-game losing streak. "I didn't want us to lose any confidence," Collins said.

That word - confidence - was a recurring theme as he spoke.

"I just want our minds to be right," Collins said. "I just think there is so much of the mental aspect you bring to it. I did not want our guys to lose that spirit. We have a lot of spirit on our team. When we get tired sometimes, it's hard to find that . . .

"I understand the fragility of this business, and confidence. We're a team that has to play with a great deal of confidence. The moment we lose that, we lose a big part of who we are."

But here they are, banging their heads against the wall. Their coach, when he was a broadcaster, remembers talking endlessly about the importance of playing to the end of every quarter - how 11 minutes of quality effort can be wasted by a wandering attention span in the 12th minute.

There was some of that last night - but it was more than that. Until the Sixers can break through and win a close game against a good team, the thought will always be there. Until they can get past it a few times, the predicament will continue to stare them down.

And you wonder how long, as a young group, they can handle such a repeating situation without their precious confidence being affected. For a team that has been so fun, that has made so many strides, it is becoming the question of the season.

or read his blog, The Idle Rich, at

www.philly.com/TheIdleRich.

For recent columns go to

www.philly.com/RichHofmann.