Collins tries to motivate Sixers to force Game 5

REPEATEDLY during his long, initial season as the 76ers' head coach, Doug Collins has talked of seeing the big picture.

That came to fruition on Thursday night, before his team hosted the Miami Heat in Game 3 of their best-of-seven Eastern Conference series.

"During the national anthem - and this is the first time I did this - I looked around," Collins said after yesterday's practice at Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine.

"I saw the stands filled. I saw 'Playoffs' on the floor. I saw my guys, and it's what I wanted to have happen for our team. I wanted the fans to love their team. I wanted the crowd to be in it from the start. I wanted to be in the playoffs, and I wanted our guys to enjoy this and understand what this is all about. [Thursday] was the first time that I really took the time. My family was all there with my grandchildren. This is why I came here. I want to keep it going, because I just love what our guys have done, and I looked around and saw that crowd. Opening Night, it was there to see the Miami Heat. [Thursday], they were there to see us."

It is not meant as a concession speech from the coach, in light of Thursday's 100-94 loss that left the Sixers in an 0-3 hole, with Game 4 tomorrow at 1 p.m. Collins simply was pointing out how much his team, fans, job and desire to keep growing this organization mean to him.

As for tomorrow, Collins called that contest a "human nature" game. Players know the monumental task at hand; no coach can hide that. Collins is no different. But he is excited to see the way he expects his team to respond.

"Are you going to let human nature take over when the going gets tough and say we're down 0-3? How bad do we want to go back to Miami?" he said. "Do I want to see these guys again? Or we're going to fight like we've done all year long and find a way to get back to Miami? Human nature is when it gets tough. [You say], 'Man, can we beat this team four straight?' Let's give ourselves a chance to do everything we can to play them in a Game 5 in Miami.

"I know what we have. It hasn't changed. Coming out for Game 3, I felt very good about it. I think we did tremendous things. I think we've done a lot of great things. I expect our guys to respond like that. I expect them to do the same thing [tomorrow]. That's who we've been all year, and that's what we're going to continue to do until they tell us we're no longer allowed to play this year."

Collins brought the team together yesterday to watch video and get in a little workout. The video session centered on the Heat's play in the fourth quarter, which the Sixers entered leading by 75-73.

"What we did was we showed the guys 16 clips of offensive rebounding and what it led to, and we pulled their last 10 baskets," Collins said. "The 10 baskets they scored in the fourth quarter, seven of them came under 5 seconds. [Chris] Bosh hit a shot with his foot on the [three-point] line [at the end of the shot clock].

"[Dwyane] Wade caught an airball and laid one in at the end of the shot clock. They had one with about three offensive rebounds. LeBron [James] hit a three to start the fourth with about 5 on the shot clock on a broken play. He had another with about 1:50 to go and about 5 seconds to go [on the shot clock] on a broken play.

"Basically, what I was walking our guys through was that there wasn't any plays that beat us. It was playing through the whole shot clock and then what we call the moment of truth. When that ball goes up go and seeking a body and creating contact and coming away with that ball. [Thursday], they got 51 shots in the paint and it was mostly because of the offensive rebounding [Miami had 20]. I think the game before that, they had gotten 31 shots in the paint. That's 20 more shots in the paint, and that's a huge differential. That was what the game was all about [Thursday], the offensive rebounding, the points in the paint and the second-chance points."

And if the Sixers hope to make a return to Miami for Game 5 on Wednesday, those stats must change.

"You don't want to get swept, you don't want to be out," forward Elton Brand said. "You want to keep playing. We've had a fun season. We're enjoying each other and we want to keep growing. We don't want to go home." *

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