How Sixers Loss to Bulls Fits in History Books

I commend Derek for even attempting a cogent recap for last night's game. The 45-point loss to the short-handed Chicago Bulls is historic in its embarrassment to a team that's only 6 games ahead of them in the standings. I figured there had to be something statistically relevant to just how bad of a whooping the Sixers were handed. Let's hit the history books for some bullet point facts I uncovered on Basketball Reference.

• No championship team in the modern era (1979-now) has lost by 40 points in a regular season game. The '06 Miami Heat and '05 San Antonio Spurs both lost to the Dallas Mavericks by 36 points. It's ridiculous to even think of the Sixers as a contender, but that's what Dei Lynam did here.
  
• The Sixers haven't lost a game this badly since March 18, 2007 when Yao Ming and the Houston Rockets stepped on their face 124-74. Steven Hunter and Willie Green started that game for the Sixers, and Bobby Jones played 13 minutes off the bench. Yeah.
  
• Even the Eddie Jordan-led Sixers' biggest loss was only 31 points. 
• The Bulls haven't won a game by this much since January 13, 2007, when Mike Sweetney and Viktor Khryapa combined for 25 points in a 111-66 rout of the Memphis Grizzlies. 
• This is the second-most points the Bulls have scored this season, and the second-least they have allowed.

No sane person is deluding themselves into thinking these Sixers are a championship team, but even somewhat good teams don't lose by 45. To all of this, coach Doug Collins said: "It happens." Well, not to championship teams, Doug. Play your young guys. Trade Tony Battie. Thanks.

The Sixers are now 1-1 on the difficult 10-game road trip, after being handed a gift-wrapped win by the Magic when they had a half-team handicap. No rest for the awful, as they head to Boston to take on the scorching Celtics tonight.