Awful Sixers literally limping to finish line

The 76ers entered the merciful final week of their season Wednesday night against the Washington Wizards, a team so disinterested in the outcome that star guard John Wall was given the night off to rest up for more important nights to come.

Not that it mattered. The Wizards exploited a confused Sixers defense, shot 65.3 percent from the floor, and won, 119-90. As if that wasn't ugly enough, Nerlens Noel sprained his right ankle in the final quarter, apparently a significant sprain, and he is even money to be shut down for the rest of the season.

No reason things should get easier now.

Washington is locked into a middling playoff spot in the Eastern Conference while the Sixers will be forced only to go through their second season of charades for three additional games. Which team is closer to contending for a championship? The Wizards are good enough to get into the postseason and win somewhere between 44 and 48 games. That's right where the Sixers used to be when they were still trying. It is a golden cage, and current general manager Sam Hinkie saw it as a lockup from which the team would never emerge doing business as usual.

What we've seen for two years is anything but usual. Hinkie tore apart the roster and, if it seemed on the verge of coming together, he tore it up again, always pointing farther down the road into the future. For his part, coach Brett Brown has tried to motivate the players left behind with whatever is at hand. Before Wednesday's game, he expressed his pride in the team's defense, particularly in comparison to its offense.

Then the Sixers went out and, until late in the game, were in danger of allowing the highest single-game shooting percentage (70.7 is the record, set in 1983 by San Antonio) in NBA history.

"There's a level of forgiveness I give them," Brown said. "But 70 points in a half. That's not good enough. That's where I get upset."

The Wizards did put up a neat 35 in each of the first two quarters and, even on a good night, the Sixers offense wasn't going to keep up with that. Going into the game, the Sixers were shooting 40.8 percent from the floor, and the last time they finished a season with a worse percentage, Eisenhower was in office and the team was the Syracuse Nationals. They aren't just bad offensively. They are epically bad.

Some of Brown's rotation decisions, particularly lately, have been curious, but can be written off to harmless experimentation, if that's the way you choose to see them. When a franchise's behind-the-curtain motivation is to lose as many games as possible and improve its chance for a higher draft pick, it is difficult not to see hidden meanings. That's not fair to Brown, but it is the upside-down world in which he has to operate.

For instance, when the determination was made to use Noel mostly at power forward - assumedly because Joel Embiid is projected as only a center - it would have seemed logical that Henry Sims would return as the starting center. Sims has been a solid enough player and has one of the best shooting percentages on the team.

Instead, Brown has gone to Furkan Aldemir, who started for the sixth straight time last night as the team lost its seventh straight game. Aldemir wasn't even an afterthought for much of the season, yet there he is, leading the charge into lottery season.

Luc Mbah a Moute is shooting less than 40 percent but keeps getting significant minutes despite having suffered through calf, toe, knee, and shoulder injuries. Isaiah Canaan, averaging 12.6 points per game, sprained his foot and is shut down for the season.

Understand, not everything is a conspiracy. But not everything isn't, either.

I think Brown plays it as straight as he can. There's no telling which of his playing-time decisions are ordered up by the front office in the name of experimentation, of seeing how different lineups work together. And if losses pile up - nine in the last 10 games - then that's the price of doing business the way the Sixers have chosen to do business.

Unless something unexpected happens, the Sixers are going to lose their final three games, especially if Noel is sidelined by the ankle sprain. When he tried to block a shot and came down on the foot of Will Bynum, Noel's right ankle rolled badly. The organization might accept the opportunity to glide into the offseason with 18 wins, one fewer than a year ago.

The payoff for the pain is still a long way off. Noel is a work in progress, as is Embiid, who hasn't progressed beyond playing two-on-two. There are no starting NBA guards on the roster. Their third-best player is in Turkey.

The good news is that the next phase should be better, and the really good news is that this particular phase will be over in a week.

@bobfordsports