THINKS THE EAGLES STOLE ONE
Just like Friday night when the Sixers barely beat the New Jersey Nets, Philadelphia will be playing a team depleted by injuries.
Detroit will be missing both Tayshaun Prince and Rip Hamilton. Prince, it was announced today, will be out indefinitely due to a small rupture of a disc in his lower back. The injury was confirmed following an MRI that was taken earlier this week. Hamilton will be missing his sixth-straight game after spaining his right ankle.
As guard Lou Williams noted after Friday's game, these are the games you have to win, when playing a team that is not at full strength, in order to stockpile them to enhance playoff position at the end of the season. That, of course, is assuming the Sixers will make the playoffs.
Guard Rodney Stuckey has been a thorn in the Sixers' side, as he averaged 18.3 points and five assists against the Sixers last season.
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.
