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Sixers Notes: Brown recalls Jasner

Before Charlotte met the 76ers on Saturday at the Wells Fargo Center, Bobcats coach Larry Brown talked about longtime Daily News sportswriter Phil Jasner, who died Friday at 68.

Before Charlotte met the 76ers on Saturday at the Wells Fargo Center, Bobcats coach Larry Brown talked about longtime Daily News sportswriter Phil Jasner, who died Friday at 68.

Jasner began covering the Sixers in 1981 and did so until cancer caused him to step back early in 2009. Brown was the team's head coach from 1997 to 2003.

"He'd been involved with the NBA for so long," Brown said. "He loved the game. He was a real reporter. He just talked about the game, and didn't get caught up in a lot of stuff that really doesn't mean anything. He's been through a lot in the last [few] years, and he'll be missed. They love their basketball here, and a lot of that is because of the people who have written about it, and cared about it. He was way at the head of the list."

Sixers coach Doug Collins said he had talked to Jasner within the last month.

"I called him before we played Milwaukee [Nov. 19], and he said, 'Don't you have a game tonight?'" said Collins, who came to the Sixers as the top overall pick in the 1973 draft. "And I said 'I do, but somebody is missing.' So, after the game was over, he said, 'I broke my rule. I rooted tonight.' "