Sixers vs. Knicks Afterpain

This isn't looking good. What was once beautiful and fresh and filled with hope in the precious few games after Evan Turner began starting is now wrong and ugly and impure. The Sixers playing like ass makes me hurt everywhere and I don't know what to do about it. Especially against the Knicks.

Last night's game was a microcosm of everything wrong with this team.

1. They couldn't hit a shot early on. Why? Because they had terrible shot selection, namely the taking of long two's. They were 6-27 on long two's last night and 9-13 on shots at the rim.
2. Jrue Holiday and Evan Turner have yet to figure out how to play with each other, and Doug Collins is equally clueless about how to use them. Jrue was fine last night, Turner was awful, but you can't discount how much their roles fluctuate from game to game. Collins is still feeling them out, but it seems so obnoxiously drastic each night that their rhythm is unmistakeably off.
3. A complete and utter inability to close out a game. Why the lineup of Lou/Meeks/Jrue/Dre/Brand was in during the 4th quarter when they've played maybe 5 minutes together all season is beyond me. Putting Lou/Meeks on Jeremy Lin was unquestionably a terrible idea. Collins seems to be trying everything, but the one thing he hasn't given a chance is....
4. Running the same offense they run for 45 minutes each night in the last 3 minutes. There is no rule to my knowledge saying that you have to play hurried, scattered, iso basketball in crunch time. But that's what happens every single game. And it makes me want to shove my head into a nail-riddled heroin 2x4 that Collins has not tried to go away from Louis Williams in the last few minutes. My face is bleeding. Somebody say something

So there it is. Spencer Hawes was also terrible, but he's still working his way back so a tentative pass for him. Though if he's not at full strength, why in the name of all that is Bossy did Nikola Vucevic (and Lavoy Allen) play ZERO MINUTES? The Knicks were, admittedly, pretty bad offensively last night and had some disturbing shot selection of their own, but there were multiple trips down the floor when they'd come down with 2-3 offensive rebounds. Elton Brand was great but he's not able to keep both Amar'e Stoudemire AND the Knicks athletic wings off the boards.

At this point, everything hurts and nothing is good. But with a win against the Celtics, optimism could be restored.