PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — In the end, one team simply played less scared than the other. When it came down to crunch time in Game 7 of their second round playoff series, the Atlanta Hawks seized the moment, while the Sixers wilted.
Atlanta scored 10 of the game's final 14 points and knocked out the Sixers with a 103-96 victory. The younger Hawks look more composed, and many of their shooters who were off to slow starts came up huge in the fourth quarter. It was a different story for the Sixers, as Doc Rivers watched his squad commit 17 turnovers and make plenty of mistakes offensively.
"We just can’t turn the ball over in a playoff game," Rivers said. "We can't, especially in a Game 7. A lot of that, to me, came from just not trusting the simple pass, making the right plays. You know what’s disappointing? We’ve done it all year."
But the Sixers didn't do it when it mattered most as their season came to an end. Tobias Harris had 24 points but went just 8-for-24 from the field. Harris said the Hawks did their part, but the Sixers did not execute the way they needed to in order to keep their season alive.
"Give them credit," Harris said. "They had guys that had it going, and they were able to make tough shots as well. And then we got a bit stagnant offensively out there."
Now comes an off-season with a host of questions, and many will surround the status of Ben Simmons. The man who many believed was a cornerstone of the team struggled throughout this series, and it may be time for Simmons and the Sixers to part ways. Simmons took his share of the blame for the second-round exit.
"I didn’t shoot well from the line this series," said Simmons. "Offensively, I wasn’t there. I didn’t do enough for my teammates. There’s a lot of things I need to work on."
Whether Simmons will be working on those questions in Philadelphia remains to be seen. The reality is the believers of "The Process" have seen the franchise go no further than Doug Collins took them in 2012. Joel Embiid tried to do his part on an injured knee but faltered down the stretch during losses in Games 5 and 7. For Embiid and "The Process," it was another missed opportunity.
"We still had to be better," Embiid said. "We still had a good chance to win. We just made a lot of mistakes."