Philadelphia 76ers Brand’s pinkie no worse for wear
Dennis Deitch
Journal Register News ServicePHILADELPHIA — The 76ers have a winning record for the first time this season, are 3 1/2 games clear of eighth-place Indiana and four ahead of ninth-place Charlotte in the Eastern Conference standings with 23 games remaining.Only an injury to one player could seriously threaten their stranglehold on a trip to the […]
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thereporteronline
Journal Register News Service

PHILADELPHIA — The 76ers have a winning record for the first time this season, are 3 1/2 games clear of eighth-place Indiana and four ahead of ninth-place Charlotte in the Eastern Conference standings with 23 games remaining.

Only an injury to one player could seriously threaten their stranglehold on a trip to the postseason, which is why there was more than a few concerned grimaces when Elton Brand came up wincing after going for a loose ball Sunday in Cleveland.

Fortunately for the Sixers, the dislocated right pinkie finger only kept him off the court briefly in the win over the Cavaliers. Monday at practice the veteran forward had a neoprene split on the finger and said that the only difference was that with his mid-range shot, “I only made eight of 10 instead of 10 of 10.

“There’s a little pain, but it felt pretty good,” Brand said.

The Sixers will need Brand and everyone else to be sharp if they hope to win their fifth straight tonight, because if there’s a team in the NBA that is riding a bigger wave than them, it’s the Dallas Mavericks.

“We’re playing against the hottest team in the NBA,” coach Doug Collins said. “I think their record is something like 41-9 with Dirk (Nowitzki) in the lineup, and they were 2-7 without him.”

He might not be a color analyst anymore, but Collins still knows how to look up and retain numbers. That would be correct, and three of the nine losses with Nowitzki came in his first four games back from the knee injury that shelved him in late December. Since a loss in Chicago Jan. 20, Dallas has won 16 of its last 17 games, with nine of those victories coming on the road.

The last time the Sixers hosted a team this hot was, well, not all that long ago. The Spurs had won 15 of their previous 17 games when they visited the Wells Fargo Center Feb. 11, and left on the losing end of a 77-71 game that was as ugly as the score indicates.

The Sixers would like to show that win wasn’t an aberration. The only other top-10 NBA team they have faced besides San Antonio during their 13-4 run since early January was the Orlando Magic, and they lost in overtime in Orlando, then lost by four at home to Dwight Howard and Co.

“We played well against San Antonio,” Brand said, “but these guys are really streaking. This is going to be a good barometer for us.”

After Dallas, the Sixers have six more games against the top-shelf teams: Two against Boston, and one each against Orlando, Miami, Oklahoma City and Chicago.

Those seven games should speak to whether the Sixers are primed to upset someone in the first round of the playoffs. As for the Mavs, they seem to bring a little bit of everything. They have size in Nowitzki and center Tyson Chandler that could give the Sixers matchup issues. They have a veteran floor general in Jason Kidd, and with Shawn Marion and Jason Terry coming off the bench they are one of the few teams that has reserves who match up with Thad Young and Lou Williams.

“They have no weaknesses,” Collins said. “They move the ball around, they mix up their defenses. This is going to be a huge test for us.

It’ll be interesting to see how our guys respond. In a lot of ways if we make the playoffs, this is the type of team we’ll see in the first round. We’ll be meeting one of these type teams in the top two or three teams in the East.”

While Collins has been pleased with the progress of rookie Evan Turner, whose maturation has given the Sixers even more quality from the reserves, he would like to see one more guy flourish as the team heads down the stretch: Marreese Speights.