It's a few minutes before tip off here at the Boston Garden (I still call it such). Here's the news:

1.) Kareem Rush will start at shooting guard instead of Willie Green, who isn't playing tonight because of the sore ankle he aggravated Saturday against the Pacers. Head coach Tony DiLeo said he is going with Rush because he wants to continue to bring Lou Williams off the bench as a spark. DiLeo said Rush played the two-spot yesterday at practice and they decided to go with that same lineup. I spoke with both Rush and DiLeo. Rush didn't know he was starting. But he said he'll approach it as an opportunity. Rush has kept his shot in shape all season, always shooting extra after practice. DiLeo said it would, obviously, be a great boast to this squad tonight if Rush could come in and spread the floor and knock down a few three-pointers. And if that's not the case, DiLeo said they would go with Plan B (which I would guess would be Lou Williams at times, and then also Marreese Speights at the power forward and Iguodala at the shooting guard).

Also, Theo Ratliff is out with the flu.

2.) Traffic in Boston is unbelievable tonight. The Sixers had two buses coming to the arena. The first one took 55 minutes to get here (it took 10-15 this morning for shootaround). The second bus didn't arrive until 6:45. Let's say they were a little stressed. Probably not the best way to start a game against the NBA's best team. But, since I witnessed the madness that was this evening's traffic, I can attest that it was unavoidable.

Back to Rush. He took a cab to the arena with Royal Ivey and at least one other player. They beat the traffic and were working on their jumpshots well before the first bus arrived.

15 minutes until this game ...

--Kate

We'll be chatting this afternoon at 3:30 p.m. if anyone has some time. Seems like a good time to discuss the past, present, and future .... just like a Christmas Carol.

Past: That Pacers game. This one is still painful to think about. It would be much more pleasant for the Sixers to be 13-14 right now, rather than 12-15.

Present: This Celtics game. Celtics are the best team in the NBA, yet again. 18-game winning streak. 26-2 record. 16-1 at home. If you want to read about the records they could break tonight with a victory, click here: Celtics story.

Future: This 2008-09 season, and what it might hold for the 76ers. On the immediate horizon is this 6-game road trip, which occurs mostly on the West Coast, but begins tonight in Boston. It's a daunting trip. Realistically, the Sixers will return with, at most, two, outside chance of three, wins. And after that, you have to look at the return of Elton Brand and wonder how much longer it will take the Sixers to re-work him back into the schemes. This team, like Brand's shoulder, is facing a disjointed time.

If you have a minute, click here: Sixers Chat.

--Kate

At this point, you almost want to take a win like this, put it in your pocket, and just walk away. Afterall, the Washington Wizards are 4-20. Take the win, bump the record to 12-14, and look ahead to tomorrow night's game against the Indiana Pacers and then the grueling start of a West Coast swing that begins before Christmas against the Celtics. (I recognize this isn't the start of the swing, but, mentally, it's the beginning of it ...)

But what came from tonight's 109-103 win in Washington D.C.? A lot of the usual, some of the ususual. Let's look at both. First, the usual.

1.) Andre Iguodala. Tonight's game is similar to how he's played all season. Starts off shooting 3 for 3, then goes 1 for 6. He can't keep that shot consistent over 48 minutes, but he finishes with 18 points, nine rebounds, and four assists. I think if any player represented the Sixers overall effort tonight, it was Iguodala: He scrapped together 18 points on four field goals and nine free throws. He took a couple of bad shots, but mostly just ran around the court trying to get a win.

2.) Samuel Dalembert. It's hard to explain, at this point, why Sammy's sitting on the bench. You can't say it's because there aren't enough minutes. Heck, Elton Brand's 35 minutes are floating about. I know he picked up two quick fouls, but 11 minutes, 53 seconds for the starting center? He only finished with three fouls. That's not what kept him off the floor in the second half.

3.) Marreese Speights. I know, you might be thinking, it's USUAL for Speights to score 17 points? No, technically that's not usual (it is his career-high afterall). But I put forth that this is what Speights would do every night, if he played 20-plus minutes every night. I don't think we saw anything unusual from Speights, except that he got enough minutes to do his thing.

Now, for what's ususual.

1.) Lou Williams. I don't think it's unusual for Lou Williams to be a factor off the bench, I think it's unusual for Williams to carry the Sixers from off the bench. 26 points? Career high. Fadeaway three-pointer from the corner? Check. Nice dishes to Speights in transition? Check. Four three-pointers? Check. Without Lou tonight, the Sixers don't win this game.

2.) Kareem Rush. Before the game new head coach Tony DiLeo said the only thing keeping Rush from contributing was an opportunity. And DiLeo promised to find Rush an opportunity. Rush hit two 3-pointers tonight and finished 2 for 3. One of his treys, as DiLeo mentioned post game, pushed the Sixers to within four points in the second half. It was an important three. Now, I did notice that defensively Rush didn't exactly put the clamps on his defender, but these things happen when you haven't gotten any run lately. Rush's productivity leads to unusual point numero three ...

3.) 9 for 21 from beyond the arc. I refuse to say anything more about this than one word: unusual.

What the Sixers did tonight was patch together a win against a not-very-good NBA team. That's what happened. And that's what they need to do, as often as they can, over the next month while Elton Brand is rehabilitating his right shoulder. There are people who believe this team is better without Brand, but, as columnist Bob Ford wrote yesterday, that is merely a sugar high. It's fun to watch this run-and-gun style, but they do need Brand as a solid half-court option.

--Kate

p.s. The photo is of the cavernous Verizon Center, located in downtown Washington D.C. at the corners of F and 6th Streets.

Elton Brand received an MRI after last night's game that revealed a fracture of the humeral head (bone) and a tear of the labrum, the Sixers announced in a press release. Sixers team doc Jack McPhilemy said he doesn't think the injury requires surgery at this time.

The Sixers said Brand will begin rehab immediately and is expected to be out a month. He will not travel with the team this afternoon to Washington, where the Sixers play the Wizards tomorrow night.

In the third quarter of last night's win over the Milwaukee Bucks, Brand left the game clutching his right shoulder. The news coming from the Sixers last night was a "Dislocated Right Shoulder."

Brand was not made available to the media at today's practice at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. Sixers officials said the first opportunity to speak with Brand will come before Saturday's home game against the Indiana Pacers.

The Sixers watched film for about 30 minutes today and then got on the court to shoot around before taking an afternoon train to Washington.

The injury to Brand tosses another wrench into what has been a whirlwind first two months of the season. Of course, on Saturday, President and General Manager Ed Stefanski fired coach Maurice Cheek after the Sixers started 9-14. New coach, Tony DiLeo, has said he was working on tweaking the offensive and defensive sets to better improve the Sixers efficiency. He said before last night's game that he believed this team had the pieces to win.

The injury to Brand comes at an odd time as we've been speaking recently about whether Brand's addition had slowed what was last year an uptempo squad. When Brand left the game last night, the Sixers trailed by seven points. They won by five points. But the consensus among the Sixers players is that Brand is an essential piece for long-term success. The Sixers might seem more effective in the short-term reverting to their run-and-gun style, but they need a reliable half-court player to win the tough games.

--Kate

It happened again: The 76ers looked better without Elton Brand on the court. But this time, the injury to Brand looks like it might keep him out of lineup for a significant amount of time. With 7 minutes, 23 second left in the third quarter, Brand took a hit from Bucks forward Luc Mbah a Moute, both went to the floor. Brand popped up quickly, as if nothing was wrong. He immediately walked off the floor, clutching his right shoulder. The word from the Sixers is that Brand dislocated his right shoulder. He was not available after the game as he was off-site getting an MRI to determine the damage.

His teammates sitting on the bench said Brand's shoulder was out-of-joint as he walked past.

When Brand left, he had four points and six rebounds. The Sixers trailed by seven points. Eventually, the Sixers (11-14) defeated the Milwaukee Bucks (11-16), 93-88. It was the second game since Sixers President and General Manager Ed Stefanski fired coach Maurice Cheeks and replaced him with Tony DiLeo. DiLeo is now 2-0, as the Sixers defeated the Washington Wizards in his debut.

Before last night's game, DiLeo was asked if he thought fans should expected a change in play within a few games. DiLeo said, "A major complete difference in how we play in three games? I don't think so." And, through two-and-a-half quarters, DiLeo was right. There were slight improvements: a good-looking trap in the backcourt, a possession with solid ball movement, better spacing for Brand down low. But the results were familiar: Trailing a not-very-good basketball team by double-digits on their home floor.

(Let's be clear, Brand is a very good basketball player. I don't, at all, believe he shouldn't be on the court when he's healthy. He plays hard. He scores points and grabs rebounds. But we have to discuss if the Sixers -- given the rest of their roster -- can play more effectively without him on the court. It's my belief that we're seeing these results without Brand because they had 82 games last season with the old roster, and only 22 (Brand missed two games with that strained hamstring ... and yes I'm aware this a parenthetical clause within parenthesis) with Brand. Obviously, they can easily revert to the style that worked for them last season. But here's the main thing: Yes, they made the playoffs with that style, but could they ever be more than that with just those pieces? What they have now, perhaps, when they can finally have both -- fast break and a halfcourt threat -- is a playoff team that can go past the first round. This is all just speculation, but these are the questions that need to be pondered. Yesterday in practice Brand had a great quote when asked why the Sixers might have messed with the chemistry of a playoff team. He said, "It's not as if they won the championship last season." That's true. But then one wonders if the cure can only be more time, more games, more practices with Brand and the rest of the roster. And if that was the case, why was Cheeks fired? When it's just going to take more time, more games for the next coach? I digress ...)

But all we have to look at is tonight. The Sixers went from down 10 to a five-point win. How did they do it? By playing like they played last season. Reggie Evans hunted down rebounds. Lou Williams (25 points) sliced to the rim, made outside shots, and just generally carried the fourth-quarter scoring. Andre Miller was his steady self. Thaddeus Young collected the scraps for 10 points and four rebounds. Rookie Marreese Speights had 12 points and a number of dunks off rebounds. And, while I know I'll get the standard "Trade Iguodala, He's Overpaid" comments, Iguodala still had seven assists and six rebounds. Yes, he shot 2 for 14. Or, as someone pointed out to me, he made all but 12 of the shots he took. Doesn't matter. He was on the court when the Sixers got their win on.

Let the discussion begin ...

--Kate

Fired Sixers coach Marice Cheeks exits the Hall of Fame Room at the Wachovia Center after today's news conference. (Ed Hille / Staff Photographer)

(We'll hold a Live Chat this afternoon at 3:30 p.m. if you want to talk more in-depth about this week's happenings and today's press conference with Mo Cheeks. Click here for the link.)

If you were unsure before today about the character of Maurice Cheeks (which is doubtful considering his history), he showed it (again).

On Monday, the 76ers announced a press conference with Cheeks for this morning at 10:30 a.m. at the Wachovia Center. It hasn't been the easiest three months for Cheeks. His team had struggled to 9-14, and there were questions about whether he was the right man to guide this revamped squad. And then, Saturday, as we all know, he was fired.

But it was interesting to hear what he would say. Would he allude to not being given enough time to mesh the off-season additions? Would he speak of the shift in identity with Elton Brand, yet the continued mantra that this should be a running team? Would he say the task he was given was impossible?

I think we all know the answers to those questions. Of course he wouldn't. He's all class, all the time.

Here's what he did say:

"First of all, now I have a little bit more time for The Sports Club ..." -- typical Cheeks to make a joke to ease a tough situation. He later said, while laughing, that sometimes you have to laugh instead of cry. So true.

Cheeks started by thanking the organization, Ed Stefanski, and the city for the opportunity to be the head coach in the city in which he started his playing career. Many times throughout the morning he said this was his city, he loved this city, and he would be open to working with the Sixers in a different capacity. Although he said no one has approached him yet on the topic. Stefanski did say on Saturday that he would talk to Mo about this after the Holidays.

Cheeks said, "This is a tough situation for me, but it's part of the business. If you're not winning games, things happen. I can't express my appreciation as much as I'd like. No one understands the feelings inside when you get fired." (In such a public forum.)

"I used to say when we had a bad game, 'It's a moment, and it will pass.' Well this is a moment. I take solace in the fact I did the best I could. This is not about pointing fingers. I'm not even going to go into the X's and O's part of it. I'm not going to go into the blame game. No one that gets fired can come up here and say, 'Look' no one feels good about it. I would assume the Sixer organization doesn't feel good about it."

Even though Cheeks made it clear he didn't want to talk about the on-court part of the decision, the questions kept coming, "Did they expect you to be a running team but didn't give you the pieces to actually be a running team?"

"Whether we could run, didn't run, I'm not getting into it ... There's a lot of things in this life that are just not fair, there's no point for me to discuss those things. My job is to go out and win games whether they hired 10 new players or 1 new player ... We went out everyday and tried."

"What we were going to do is what we tried to do. We were going to run. We didn't do it as well as we would have liked."

"I thought we were going to run. It's not going to benefit anyone to say, 'We couldn't run, we couldn't rebound,' It does me no good to say those things."

"Anytime you get let go it hurts, not being able to finish ... finish what we started. I really thought we had an opportunity to win."

"It does come down to having certain players who can do certain things. But it also comes down to the coach getting the certain players to do certain things."

Added Cheeks: "I had some quality players and character-wise, I don't think I can get much better."

Cheeks talked a little bit about last season's playoff run and how, possibly, that success led to this day. Meaning that he raised expectations.

"We won more games ... for whatever reason. We had a cohesion. And the cohesion we had at that times was pretty special." Then Cheeks said that if he hadn't had that run at the end of last season, he probably would have said goodbye much sooner.

When did he know he would be fired?

"You just know things are not going the way you want them to. Having been around this business for 30 years, you know how things go ... There were games for us that could have turned it a different way."

Games Cheeks mentioned: The second half against Chicago. The Rashard Lewis 3-pointer in the Orlando Magic game at home. The lifeless loss at the Charlotte Bobcats.

Cheeks said after he was fired he received many nice phone calls, texts, emails, letters, etc., which was hard for him. He said what was especially hard was hearing from his players.

"I was pushing myself away as much as possible, then getting those texts was difficult for me."

Cheeks said you can say to yourself all the time, "If I had a shooter ... If I had this rebounder ..." but that he "tried to do with what he had, the best he could."

Cheeks said he felt it was a healthy thing for him to step away for a little bit. He said before the press conference was set, he was heading to Miami, and that now he will head to Miami to "get some sun on his face and re-energize and figure out the best next step." He said he doesn't know if he will coach again.

Why did Cheeks halt his plans to Miami to have this press conference?

"I think it would have been a little selfish for me to pick up and leave ... as a head coach there's so many people that support you and you don't often have a chance to say 'thank you.'"

Did Philadelphia see a different side of Cheeks, as a coach?

"They saw a different side of me ... I haven't changed. I got a little older, a little wiser."

Cheeks said he was 21 when he first came to Philly, and he is 52 now. (Cheeks said he preferred playing to coaching ... not sure anyone can blame him.)

"A lot has gone on in my life since I first came here."

Can this team be a playoff team?

"I think it's a good basketball team. They have good young players and if they keep going they have a chance."

Can he pinpoint what happened this season?

"Expectations started to mount. I kept trying to find ways to do this and do that ... I kept trying to pull and pull and pull and nothing was coming. Then you know it's time."

--Kate