The Philadelphia 76ers must have big plans for New Year’s Eve because they certainly weren’t interested in playing basketball on Tuesday afternoon. After a close first quarter, the Sixers fell apart, trailing by as much as 36 points in the third quarter before suffering a 115-97 defeat to the Indiana Pacers. 

It was another confounding performance from a team that’s fell short of expectations this season, and their third loss in a row on their current road trip. Mired in another tough stretch, the frustration is starting to show in the locker room. After the game, starting shooting guard Josh Richardson questioned the team’s accountability. 

“I don’t think that there’s enough accountability in our locker room right now, honestly,” Richardson said. “I think that we got some new guys, who don’t want to step on toes, including myself. I feel like we kind of go play, and don’t compete as much. There’s been games that we have and it’s been great. But when it’s not going good, we got to hold each other accountable. I think that’s where a lot of our problems start.”

This is now the third time already that the Sixers have lost three games in a row, something they only did once all of last season. And making this current losing streak even more disappointing is that it comes on the heels of their dominant win over the Eastern Conference-leading Milwaukee Bucks on Christmas Day. 

As that performance showed, the ceiling is very high for this team, and even amid all the consternation, they’re still 23-13 and just a few games out of second place in the East. But the continuity just isn’t there — both on and off the floor. 

The former was always expected given the roster situation. They don’t have much shooting or creative playmaking and are imbalanced heavily in favor of frontcourt players. But the hope remains that they’ll better figure out how to play with each other as the season goes along, and can rely on their talent come playoff time. 

Unfortunately, it seems they have plenty of work to do off the court as well, and that’s a bit more concerning. In addition to Richardson’s concerns about holding each other accountable, Al Horford was just quoted as saying he’s not all that thrilled with his offensive role. 

Getting used to playing with new teammates takes time, but those problems can usually be solved through hard work and repetition. There really isn’t a similar formula for locker room dynamics. What are you going to do? Have Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons sit down and watch film of their interactions with teammates to see how they can be better? Sometimes teams just don’t mesh, or can’t figure out a stable dynamic. 

Again, the Sixers have perhaps the most talented roster in the East, and in Embiid, Simmons and Horford have the best trio of options for slowing down Giannis Antetokounmpo. They’re going to be a problem in the spring, and might get through to the FInals regardless of whatever issues are happening off the court. 

At the same time, the fact that they keep suffering these losing streaks, and are now openly complaining about things in the press is not a great sign. There’s still plenty of time to sort things out, but it’s fair to have some concern about the Sixers.