SIXERS NEWS

The Sixers traveled to New Jersey tonight for matchup with the Nets, currently the worst team in the NBA with only 4 wins to their name. Thus, this should have been an easy win for the Sixers to snap their 3 game losing streak. They came out flat though and appeared to be coasting a little, as if they thought they didn't need to bring it to beat New Jersey. That almost cost them a 4th straight loss as the Nets jumped out early. Eddie Jordan had to resort to playing the bench for most of 2nd quarter just to wake the team up enough to pull within 2 by the half. They then built a nice lead in the 3rd quarter and led by 9 heading into the 4th quarter. However, they really should have been up by much more than that but couldn't shake the Lethargy they started the night with and it almost got them in the 4th quarter. New Jersey was able to rally within a score several times before the Sixers finally seemed to take control with a 6 point lead and 33 seconds left.

Then Yi Jianlian nailed a trey and Elton Brand missed two free throws on the other end to give New Jersey one more chance. Fortunately, they completely messed up their in bounds play with Jarvis Hayes throwing up a wild trey that had no chance. From there the Sixers finally made some free throws to put away the Nets 83-79. So in the end the Sixers didn't beat the Nets so much as the Nets beat themselves and when you need to hang on and hope the Nets make mistakes at the end of the game you've got problems. In fact the Sixers only shot 36% from the field, missed 11 free throws and got out rebounded by the worst rebounding team in the NBA. Yet they still won, which just goes to show how comically bad the Nets are this season. The Sixers can't expect to keep putting up numbers like that and lackluster efforts like this or they're not going to win too many more games this season.

In the loss Samuel Dalembert put up another double-double with 12 and 11 rebounds. That gives him 8 double-doubles in the Sixers last 14 games. The Sixers are just 6-8 over those 14 games , but sadly that's actually their hottest extended run of the season thus far. The Sixers are now 3-0 against the Nets this season, and that despite the Nets really outplaying them in all 3 games. New Jersey has had the Sixer's number this season, but they have been just inept enough to figure out a way to lose to the Sixers every time. So if nothing else at least the Sixers aren't as bad as the Nets. Things could actually be worse for them then 16-31 overall and a full 8 games out of the Eastern conference playoff picture.