MUST BE DREAMING: TEMPLE IS 9-2?
It's been an extreme schedule thus far for the Sixers, and it continues tonight as the winless New Jersey Nets (0-5) visit the Wachovia Center.
In their two losses this season, the Sixers have been blown out at Orlando and at home this past Tuesday by the Celtics. Those two teams are a combined 10-1 and appear to be among the elites in the Eastern Conference. The Sixers' two wins this season have come against the New York Knicks and the Milwaukee Bucks, who are a combined 2-6.
The Nets will be very shorthanded tonight as they probably will dress just nine players as Yi Jianlian will be out 2 to 4 weeks with a sprained MCL, Devin Harris is out for about the same time with a groin pull and Jarvis Hayes, Keyon Dooling and Tony Battie are also out with various injuries. Add to that second year swingman Chris Douglas-Robers is battling the flu and might also be out tonight.
A loss tonight would give the Nets their worst start in team history. They started 0-5 once before, in the 1996-97 season under John Calipari.
The Sixers will welcome a shorthanded and struggling team in an effort to erase the memory of the Celtics loss in which Boston drained 14-of-20 three pointers and shot close to 57 percent from the floor.
Phil Jasner joined the staff of the Daily News in 1972. He has covered the 76ers and the NBA on a full-time basis since 1981. He won the 2004 Curt Gowdy Media Award, presented by the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame for outstanding contributions to the sport during his career; he was a finalist for the award in 2001, when he also received a lifetime achievement award from the Professional Basketball Writers Association during the NBA Finals. He is a past president of the Professional Basketball Writers Association and the Philadelphia College Basketball Writers Association. Along the way, he has covered high school sports, the Big 5, the Eagles and the NFL, the World Football League, the North American Soccer League and what was then the Major Indoor Soccer League. He is a proud graduate of Temple University, and spent his early professional days at the Pottstown (Pa.) Mercury, Montgomery Newspapers (Fort Washington, Pa.), the Norristown (Pa.) Times-Herald and the Trentonian.
Bob Cooney has been at the Daily News for almost 20 years, working in the sports department the past 12 years. This is his first season on the Sixers beat. He has covered just about everything, but mostly college basketball, where he has been the La Salle beat writer for the past six seasons.
