If you were looking to find one game to show someone to encapsulate this sucky end to the season for the Philadelphia 76ers... well, a) I'm not sure why you would be so cruel as to subject another party to the pathetic majesty of the late-season 2015-'16 Sixers, and b) it probably wouldn't quite by this one, since neither team broke 100, let alone 120. Still, the script couldn't have been more familiar for these end-of-days Sixers than it was last night in Indiana: Get out to an early deficit against a superior team, keep it relatively close for the majority of the game, let it slip away in the fourth and lose by 16. Final score: Pacers 91, Sixers, 75, Sixers fans 0 percent surprised or amused.
Ish Smith was in full pumpkin mode for this one, going 2-15 from the field for his four points and four assists. Tough to get too mad at Ish, since this is who he is and you have to expect a FG clunker like this from him every once in a while, but man does it just suck the air out of this team when he's missing from the three-point line, at the basket, and everywhere in between. Defenders are going under on Ish these days like their name was Amy Lee, and he can't even pretend to have the instinct to punish them for it. Worse, it's now been almost 20 games since Ish has even posted double figures in assists — as defenders realize they can just play five feet off him below the arc, they've cut off drive-and-kick lanes for him, and he's not making things easier for his teammates anymore. (How many Ish-to-Nerlens lobs can you even remember seeing since the All-Star Break? They used to be three a game, now we're lucky if we get two in a week.)
At the least — and I mean the very, very least — Hollis Thompson deserves some credit for coming to life recently. Hollis only went 1-5 from three last night, which for most of the Sixers season would imply a totally lost game for the Process proxy. But he's gotten much better in the last few games at cutting without the ball, pulling up from mid-range when given the opportunity, getting buckets in the flow of the offense that don't just involve him loitering behind the arc and waiting for Ish to kick it out to him. He scored 15 points in Indiana, marking his fourth straight game of 15 or more — the longest such streak of his career — and also helped pressure Paul George into a 4-16 shooting night at the other end. Good on ya, Hollis.
The Sixers' final extended road jaunt of the season continues with three Western Conference opponents over the week to come, including a trip to Denver tomorrow night to play the Nuggets. It's one of only a handful of plausibly winnable games remaining on the Sixers' schedule, and we still need one win in 11 to avoid the black stain of history. Hopefully the Rocky Mountain air is just the salve that our point guard needs to rediscover any semblance of a shooting touch.