The Sixers turned a strong first half into a business-as-usual stinker in the final 24 minutes, with the Hawks running to a 125-116 victory through their play in the second half. Atlanta has now won nine straight games over the 76ers, a bewildering mark for one of the league’s standards of mediocrity. Tyrese Maxey left the game in the final minute after hurting his hand in a collision with Adem Bona.

Oh, and the Sixers are now officially in the play-in after a win for the Magic on Saturday. Good times.

Here’s what I saw.

A better gameplan and effort!

Playing undermanned in so many recent games, the Sixers have often enticed you to turn the game off before the first half was even over. No one expects the Showtime Lakers with so many starters out, but the Sixers haven’t taken care of the little things lately, undermining themselves from the opening tip. Saturday’s meeting with the Hawks featured a much better start and serious approach from the Sixers. They showed changes on both sides of the ball, most of which were for the better.

There was a ton more off-ball movement on offense, a genuine plan in place to deal with Tyrese Maxey getting trapped early in the shot clock. When the Hawks threw the expected two at Maxey early and often, the Sixers were ready for it, particularly on plays with Maxey drifting toward the left side of the floor. With a guard spaced to the corner, Andre Drummond flashed middle on two identical-looking plays in the first half, dunking one and creating an assist on the other, turning and firing on the short roll to finish off a great offensive sequence.

Knowing that Maxey was going to face pressure, I thought the Sixers were more purposeful about using Cam Payne or even Trendon Watford as early-clock initiators, waiting to set up Maxey with off-ball screens and movement until later in the clock. Both of those guys did a good job in their respective roles, with Payne racking up five first-half assists and Watford killing the Hawks in the post in a series of mismatches on the block. Powering the offense, though, was Maxey, who raced out to 22 first-half points on a sick blend of runners, transition threes, and stepback jumpers, coping well with Atlanta’s mix of coverages.

Philadelphia’s zone defense was the surprise star of the first half, with the Sixers sitting in a 2-3 for what felt like 20 of the first 24 minutes of this game. They probably leaned on it a little too heavily

I’m not sure the Hawks could have helped the Sixers more if they were intentionally throwing the game, with Atlanta committing some insanely sloppy turnovers dribbled or thrown right into the waiting arms of Philadelphia players. But the Sixers also did a lot of good work of their own, creating their own luck. Adem Bona did an excellent job of directing traffic on the back end, barking orders out like a seasoned vet, and Tyrese Maxey had some perfectly-timed stunts to disrupt Hawks drivers and spring the Sixers for fast breaks in the other direction.

Bona’s recent play has been super encouraging, even if his stats have remained fairly pedestrian for a higher-minute center. While he’s still capable of making highlight-reel plays at the rim, he has shown a better feel for when to challenge and when to sit back with his hands in a legal guarding position, avoiding the cheap fouls that have plagued him in the NBA. There was a sequence late in the second quarter when he slid with Onyeka Okongwu in space, waited for him to pick up the dribble, and then slid into the perfect spot to stonewall him, ultimately forcing a kick back to the perimeter (where the perimeter defense was less than stellar, unfortunately).

Kelly Oubre also showed how valuable he can be to this group in his return to the floor, offering real juice as a secondary creator with a hyper-efficient night. With Atlanta directing most of their attention at the backcourt, Oubre was able to hunt CJ McCollum and the Hawks guards for some “too little” possessions, scoring from the midrange at a height his man couldn’t get to.

Death, taxes, losing the third quarter

You’re not going to believe this, but after a stellar first half that had the Sixers out in front, things completely fell apart in the third quarter. The Hawks scored six straight points to open the third and had taken the lead by the 10:06 mark of the period, erasing what had been a full half of bozo ball in less than two minutes. Good times!

We can start with Maxey, or more accurately, we can focus on the absence of Maxey production after halftime. He had just one shot attempt in the third quarter, and a single point on a free throw from an away-from-the-play foul by the Hawks, with Atlanta shifting away from hard doubles and more toward a pack-the-paint strategy that showed him multiple bodies at the rim. While I thought Maxey had a great passing game not picked up by the assist total, the change took him out of the game as a scorer, which was not to Philadelphia’s benefit.

After making inroads against the zone late in the second quarter, Atlanta’s offense was better (if still quite sloppy) in the third and onward, probing the middle of the floor as the Sixers struggled to stay connected or in the right spots in help positions. They made some downright nasty gambles — Watford just walked aimlessly away from the corner to concede one wide-open three from Risacher in the corner — and all the haunting memories of this season came roaring back. Their offense was not a whole lot better, with the ball and player movement slowing to a crawl for seemingly no reason.

In the end, some of their season-long woes did the Sixers in. Andre Drummond had an otherwise okay game but was left in two or three minutes too long in the fourth, and Atlanta punished his fatigue with several big rebounds in his area in the closing stretch. I don’t know why their standard operating procedure in the second half is slow, uninventive, and chasing the opponent’s adjustments rather than playing as the aggressor, but it doesn’t reflect well on the team or the coaching staff.

This is an understandable loss on paper, but a frustrating one to watch, all the same.

Other notes

— I have no new information on Tyrese Maxey immediately after the game, but a collision with Adem Bona to end the game had him flexing his dominant right hand, forcing a stoppage as the Sixers tried to get him off the floor. Any injury to Maxey would basically kill any chance they have left to avoid the play-in (or even worse), so stay tuned there.

— The only saving grace in the third quarter was Quentin Grimes, who pulled a heater out of thin air after a collision at the rim with Okongwu on a dunk attempt. Atlanta’s starting center was chirping at Grimes after successfully preventing him from converting a poster slam, only for Grimes to get revenge moments later, driving the baseline for a hellacious finish at the rim. On his next attempt, Grimes made a tremendous move to beat the pressure on the perimeter before switching hands for a spectacular layup at the rim.

When Grimes is focused on the simple things — drive, spot up, cut — he is a really dangerous basketball player. His first step can be absolutely lethal, even against great defenders, neutralizing any size or strength advantages before the opponent has the chance to leverage them. Getting him to lock in on those things alone, though, is part of the problem. He gets a bit too ambitious with his passing, for example, and he had a couple of misses against the Hawks where he turned a good look into a worse one by not playing more decisively. Still, it was a stellar outing for him.

— As a member of another media organization, I try to stay away from too many broadcasting complaints. But the Sixers’ broadcast is criminally bad on the production end to the point of parody at times. They manage to miss in-game moments almost constantly, cutting away from the action to show some useless crowd or bench shot, or a replay that the broadcast team is expecting to be a completely different piece of video.

For example, when Dyson Daniels decided to shove Trendon Watford over a brewing feud in the first half, the cameras managed to pick up none of it, cutting between two or three different feeds that were nowhere close to the court. The Sixers managed to turn the ball over after a timeout later in the second quarter, but no one watching the Philadelphia broadcast would have known that, because they didn’t show it or acknowledge it in the process of returning from the commercial break. These aren’t isolated incidents, either, with moments like these happening throughout the season.

And enough with the useless “stat track” box in the corner of the screen, the 2K-esque circles under players, and the “high tech” wire cams that take focus away from the product. Just show people the damn game!