"We're struggling right now," Aaron McKie said, grimly accepting last night's 89-87 loss to the Atlanta Hawks, one that left the Sixers with their longest negative streak since dropping seven in a row during the 1997-98 season.

"You have to understand that, once we get over that hump, once we get one win, it takes some of the pressure off. But it seems like all the breaks we used to get last year are going the opposite way for us now. Last year, these were our kinds of games right here. Down the stretch, we close these out defensively.

"It ain't happening right now, so we've got to find another way to try to get some wins. We hit the panic button. We didn't respond like we should have."

Never mind that Allen Iverson was back and scoring 34 points after missing two games with a sprained left thumb. Never mind that McKie was back after sitting out a game with a lower back strain. Don't use as a crutch the absences of Derrick Coleman (hyperextended left knee) and Eric Snow (his wife, DeShawn, gave birth to a son, Darius, in Philadelphia). This was the Sixers' game, one in which they led, 74-65, with 11 minutes, 18 seconds remaining and 79-72 with 7:34 left.

All they had to do was take it.

They couldn't. "We can't keep saying we let it slip away," Corie Blount said. "But it happens."