Last night the Sixers continued their end of season fall from grace, this time at the hands of Lebron James and his Cleveland Cavaliers, who literally stole the win away from the Sixers after the game had actually ended.

The loss wasted a brilliant fourth quarter from Lou Williams (21 pts, 12 in the 4th), and further demoralized the hometown crowd.

With about 6 seconds remaining, Williams recovered a mis-handled ball from Andre Iguodala, and chucked up a shot from just inside the 3 point line, to put the Sixers ahead 90-89.

On the ensuing possession, James stumbled down the lane, and tossed up a bad shot that clanked off the rim and into Devin Brown’s hands, who went for a put back that missed as time expired.

The Sixers quickly left the court, but were called back when the refs reviewed the play and concluded that Brown was fouled on his last second attempt.

Brown sank both free throws and the Sixers were sent back to the locker room with their tails between their legs.

The refs were right, Brown was hacked by Samuel Dalembert, but they easily could have hit James with a traveling violation as well. Consider that non call as payback for all the times Dr.J, Charles Barkley, and Allen Iverson got away with the same thing.

At the end of the day, there’s no point in rehashing what happened last night, it’s in the books as a Sixers loss. The issue now is how they will respond.

Two things generally happen after a tough loss, and it can be applied to any sport. Teams either fall completely off the cliff or rise up and start to play with a chip on their shoulder.

I’m not sure what the mental make-up of the team is, they’re all so young and inexperienced in this type of atmosphere.

I don’t know if the Sixers have that figure in the locker room that will really shake the core of the team and give them the motivation to play four full quarters. It would be nice to see Iguodala step up and give the team the type of leadership he should be displaying at this point in his career, but we’ve yet to see that from him, at least publicly.

Andre Miller addressed the team last week, and obviously the results of that meeting have been dubious at best, so it’s a stretch to see him doing so again with more effective results.

I think at this point, their best asset may actually be that inexperience. Sometimes young teams don’t understand the pressure they are under and are able to go further then most people expected. The Sixers benefited from the standpoint that no one expected anything from them, and it’s turned into a great story.

Unfortunately, the story is not over and I have yet to discern what would make a happy ending. The fact that they made the playoffs is amazing and should be satisfying enough. But for them to go into the playoffs playing this type of ball could do serious harm to the confidence level of the team heading into next year.

No one expects the team to fight for the Championship, but I do expect better play down the stretch, and sounder all around basketball. I also would like to see a little more of an attitude within the team. Hopefully they find that chip soon.