(Associated Press)

A reporter questioned whether Doug Collins has lost his team. Collins refuted it convincingly.

“Are you kidding me? Seriously, you're kidding me, right? You're digging,” Collins said Tuesday, after the Sixers lost for the sixth time in seven games. “The answer to that is no. That's not a good question. That's what you do when you lose games and that's the road you go down. That must mean they're not listening to me.”

The Sixers were outscored, outshot, outrebounded … and the list goes on. If there's something that could've gone wrong for the Sixers, it did in their 111-99 loss to New Orleans.

So where to from here? What's next for the Sixers, who came within an eight-point deficit in the fourth quarter of winning consecutive games for the first time in six weeks? Hold out for Andrew Bynum, who said Monday he thinks he can be back by February? Hope that the struggling defense finds its way? Hope Nick Young scores 14 points in 12 fourth-quarter minutes every night?

“Had to try to do something,” Collins said. “What do they say is the definition of insanity – doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results? So I didn't want you to call me insane after the game.

“I had to try something. The disappointing thing for me, night after night, is I don't know what I'm going to get. I think maybe some of the people watching our games are saying what the heck am I doing? And sometimes I wonder, because I can't find answers. It's not like I'm not trying.”

The only thing consistent about the Sixers is Jrue Holiday, whose 29-point, 11-assist performance was a thing of beauty. Thad Young wasn't half-bad, either, coupling 12 points and six boards.

But by and large, the Sixers didn't get anything from anyone else. Spencer Hawes and Lavoy Allen were ghosts on the board. Royal Ivey and Damien Wilkins, believed to be saviors to the Sixers' defense, were porous at that end of the floor. Jason Richardson couldn't buy a bucket. And Evan Turner … where's he been lately?

Collins doesn't know what he's going to get any time out. It's not that he's lost his team. It's that he doesn't know how to get enough from his team to make it a winning ballclub.

“Inconsistency. That's the definition of inconsistency,” Collins said. “You can look it up in the dictionary.”