For Sixers, it just gets worse

THERE WASN'T really a way for 76ers coach Brett Brown to describe his team's 11th loss in a row, by 20 points, no less, to the worst team in the NBA.

In their ninth consecutive home loss, the Sixers trailed by 35 points at one point and allowed 73 points to Milwaukee in the first half.

Of the Bucks' 11 wins in 56 games, the 130-110 final represented their widest margin of victory.

Oh, and the Sixers have allowed more than 100 points in 11 consecutive games.

"When you're losing with the margin that we've been losing at, and against Milwaukee, I think not great things creep in all over the place," said Brown, whose team fell to 15-42. "That game was very different to me than the Dallas game [a 12-point loss on Friday]. The Dallas game you could sleep [at night] because the energy was pretty good. I thought the energy tonight was extraordinarily poor."

Funny the coach mentioned that because one of the most entertaining parts of the evening was a fan sound asleep in the front row for the better part of half the game.

Yeah, it was that bad.

Thaddeus Young paced the Sixers again with 28 points, a career-high seven assists and six steals. Michael Carter-Williams scored 20 while Tony Wroten contributed 19.

Milwaukee, which shot 57 percent from the floor, had seven players in double figures, led by O.J. Mayo's 25 and 20 from Ersan Ilyasova. Those two combined to make 15 of their 23 shots. The Bucks also outrebounded the Sixers by 47-28.

"I get very frustrated, especially when you're taking loss after loss," said Young, who set his career high in assists for the second straight game. "But at the end of the day it's about helping these guys get better and me going as a player, also. Everything is not going to always go the way you want it to or the way everybody thinks it should. You have to take it day by day."

Is he kidding?

What is there to enjoy about this season that has produced limited wins, a lot of blowout losses and a first-round pick (Nerlens Noel) sitting on the bench for what appears to be the season?

Plenty, at least according to the guy who is overseeing the action. Brown now has a bunch of new faces to learn after Thursday's trading blitz and is riding an extended losing streak.

"It's part of the landscape, it's just part of coaching the Philadelphia 76ers in 2014," Brown said. "I like it, in a sadistic way. It's good. I look forward to seeing what these guys can do. People sort of discount it that we have a short amount of time left. I don't see it that way. [Twenty five] games, that's a lot of games and there are fantastic opportunities to be had."

At the beginning of the season, Brown talked about how simple he was going to keep things as he tried to grow his young players into NBA talents. That hasn't changed much. In fact, with all the changes to the roster throughout, it's gotten even more plain.

"We're really basic," he said. "We never got too tricky, even at the start. But we've really even stripped down more. And I don't mind that. You're always paranoid, like if the season were to end today what would I regret not doing or paid more attention to? I feel like we're doing the things we said we were going to do when we all got together.

"I really want to make sure that we play with some energy. We're a bit kamikaze, we press, we trap, we're fourth in the NBA in creating turnovers. We're fourth in the NBA in creating steals. That's the nature of this year's team, we're young and wild and I don't mind it. So we want to at least be good at it. That's how I want to end the year, make sure we compete and bring a level of energy."

Newcomers Henry Sims, Eric Maynor and Byron Mullens all saw action . . . The Sixers host the Orlando Magic tomorrow, then will honor Allen Iverson on Saturday night when they host the Washington Wizards . . . The Sixers have allowed an average of 65.4 points in the first half the last seven games, including a season-high 73 to the Bucks.

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