Days off will suit weary Sixers

The 76ers finally get a breather.

After a stretch jammed with games and, most recently, a five-game road trip, the Sixers will not play again until Wednesday night against the Atlanta Hawks.

This downtime will afford the Sixers three days to rest swingman Andre Iguodala, who missed Saturday night's 110-101 loss to the Portland Trail Blazers because of right knee tendinitis.

The Sixers said Iguodala was capable of playing on Saturday, but felt one missed game would go a long way toward healing Iguodala's nagging injury. Saturday's loss against the hot-shooting Blazers was the final game of a five-game road trip. Immediately after the game, the Sixers took a red-eye, cross-country flight back to Philly.

The team did not practice on Sunday. It will return to the practice court on Monday at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine.

Basically, the Sixers salvaged a road trip that began with two tough losses: a blowout defeat to the Milwaukee Bucks and an up-and-down loss to the Utah Jazz. The Sixers then rebounded to win consecutive games over the Los Angeles Clippers and Sacramento Kings but entered Saturday's game against Portland undermanned.

Portland finished the game shooting 51.4 percent from the floor, 47.8 percent (11 for 23) from three, and 86.2 percent (25 for 29) from the line. The Trail Blazers scored 36 points in the first quarter and scored no fewer than 23 points in any quarter.

"I thought we got confused on some of the rotations," Sixers coach Doug Collins said. "We rotated off guys who could shoot to go to guys who couldn't. We lost a little bit of discipline with that."

Collins said that for the most part he felt his guys played terrific, although the trip in general could have been more productive.

"It was an OK trip," power forward Elton Brand said. "We did OK. We could have done really well if we'd have gotten that Utah win - we'd feel really good about it. But it's an OK trip."

Collins said the team would spend Monday and Tuesday getting back on East Coast time and preparing for Wednesday night's home game against the Hawks, who are just ahead of the Sixers in the Eastern Conference standings.