Sixers trying to carry themselves like a playoff team

Fresh off of an eight-game, 17-day road trip, 76ers coach Doug Collins had his team in the gym yesterday at Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine to shake off the cobwebs of an early morning flight home from New Orleans and to prepare for what is an important stretch that could go a long way in the team's hunt for a playoff spot.

Cue the Jim Mora clip: "Playoffs? You're talking about playoffs? Playoffs?"

Well, the season is 34 games old and despite going 3-5 on the trip, the Sixers and Collins are happy with the progress they have shown, progress made despite being hampered by injuries most of the season.

Andre Iguodala will not return to the court until at least Jan. 10 due to tendinitis in his right Achilles, and starting center Spencer Hawes is still listed as day-to-day with a mild mid-back strain. Still, that playoff word is creeping into the gym.

And with nine of the next 13 games at home, and nine of them coming against teams with sub-.500 records, it would appear to be a time for the Sixers to perhaps position themselves into one of the eight Eastern Conference spots at around the midpoint of the season.

"I don't know about making a move, but I do know that home court has got to be good to us," Collins said. "We know we've got a lot of tough home games. But we do have to beat teams, whether it be Milwaukee, Indiana, Charlotte, Detroit, New Jersey, Washington, Cleveland - all those teams we want to keep below us if we can because right now we're chasing that eighth spot."

Collins is the typical one-game-at-a-time coach, never looking beyond the next opponent. He has, however, mentioned the playoffs to his squad and wants them to know it is an attainable goal.

"After we played the Lakers [a four-point loss on New Year's Eve] I told our guys, 'We should be thinking that we want to be a playoff team,' " Collins said. "I haven't dwelled on it, but I said, 'Look, we have every opportunity if we take care of our business.'

"I wish we could get a full deck. We really miss Dre. We miss Spencer. On this trip we played a couple of games without Lou [Williams, due to the birth of his daughter], we played [four] without Dre and we lost Spencer. We're just not talented enough to lose a couple of starters and, especially on the road, play through that."

Though the trip did end with three wins in eight games, there are positives from which to draw. They rebounded from a 45-point loss in Chicago and nearly upset the Boston Celtics the next night, losing by four. There was that four-point loss to the Lakers and they had a chance to knock off New Orleans on Monday despite a horrific shooting night in which three of their four guards combined to shoot 3-for-27.

Now comes an important stretch during which the white uniforms will be brought out of storage and a chance at making the postseason might become a little more clear.

"That's one of our goals, to make the playoffs," said guard Jrue Holiday. "I don't really pay attention to it right now, but I think I heard in LA that we were or near the eighth seed. I think we have a good chance of making the playoffs. I think we're good enough."

Said forward Elton Brand: "We've got some teams right in front of us and some teams behind us that we're playing that we can boost ourselves up if we get a win and knock them back down a little bit in the loss column and bring us up in the win column.

"I keep an eye on the standings. You want to see where you are. It's not about seedings and who you could be playing, No. 1 or No. 2, it's about just getting in there. Having enough wins to get in there."

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