Sixers' Smith back in action

ISH SMITH wasn't really looking forward to the idea of having to go against 6-6 Michael Carter-Williams, who is at least a half foot taller. The fact that he had to do it with an aching groin, which kept him out of Saturday's game in Chicago, made matters even worse.

But even if he could only go a little bit, he was going to play as hard as he could for as long as he could. That turned out to be 34 minutes, and Smith finished with four points and nine assists in the Sixers' loss to the Bucks last night.

"It feels better," said Smith. "I just want to play, it's as simple as that. You want to make sure you're 100 percent healthy, but if I can go, I can go. And I didn't play too well [his last game, 1-for-9, three turnovers] so I want to redeem myself from that. It's just the competitiveness in me. If I feel like I can play, I can play. If not, I'll tell coach.

"[MCW] is a heck of a player and there's a reason he was the rookie of the year, and there's a reason why he was drafted high. I'm sure it surprised the whole NBA world when he was traded because he played so well here. His length defensively and his length offensively . . . He's able to back you down, his passing ability. He's a tough cover.''

Carter-Williams finished with 30 points and five assists in 30 minutes.

While Ish Smith was back in the lineup, Brett Brown was still without Nerlens Noel (sprained ankle), Isaiah Canaan (sprained foot), Luc Mbah a Moute (shoulder) and Jason Richardson (sore knee).

No doubt Noel was itching to play, especially against Michael Carter-Williams, an old AAU teammate. But Brown just didn't see the logic in it.

"I don't think so. It's that bad. It is," said Brown, when asked if Noel could have played had it been earlier in the season. "He wants to play but I said a while back that I think there's going to be a difficult chance that he'll play again [this season]. He didn't like me saying that. I think that there's still a chance that we may see him against Miami. He wants to play, but it's just not smart. I think even under normal circumstances in November or December, we're just going to rest him."

When Brett Brown has a few extra minutes a day, he'll be sure to catch up on what his old team, the San Antonio Spurs, is doing. Once again, the Spurs glided through most of the regular season, but have really picked up their play of late, which has resulted in 11 consecutive victories.

It doesn't come as a surprise to Brown. He witnessed it for 12 years, when the team never won fewer than 50 games in a season.

"I don't think that it's ever going to happen," Brown said of the Spurs not having success. "I think that in 2025 Pop [Gregg Popovich] will be the coach and they're going to win 50-something games, and Timmy [Duncan], like he did against Houston when he was 12-for-15 and had the game-winning block [will still be going strong]. It's just things that we now call sports science they did years ago and it was just gut feeling how to rest players. Some things that they do statistically we now call analytics, that we had a gut feel a decade ago - that you can let people shoot corner threes, which is a pretty high percentage shot, and that you couldn't foul a lot and put people in the bonus early. Sports science is now what we see it. Analytics is now what we see it. And the Spurs and Pop roll on. They just have that internal clock that it's April and it's really now becoming close to the playoffs."

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