Doug Collins

Hours before Wednesday's game, fans and players alike were caught up in whether the "little guy" was in the house. "Is AI here?" Elton Brand asked a reporter two hours before the game. Fans were standing from the time they entered the Wells Fargo Center to try for a glimpse of Allen Iverson after word leaked that the former Sixers superstar would be in attendance. And the place exploded when Iverson came out of the tunnel close to the Sixers bench and, wearing a Lou Williams jersey and a Sixers warm-up jacket, handed the game ball to referee Joey Crawford.

COLLINS' TOUCH 1985-8630-52 Stan Albeck (+10) 1994-9528-54 Don Chaney (+18) 2000-0119-63 Leonard Hamilton (+16)

NEWARK, N.J. - Goodbye, New Jersey; hello, playoffs. While the Nets marked their final game in North Jersey after 35 years (they will move across the river to Brooklyn next season), the 76ers held a mild celebration of their own Monday night after beating New Jersey, 105-87. The win clinched a playoff berth for the Sixers, who improved to 34-30 with their third consecutive win on the road. They are tied with New York for the seventh spot in the Eastern Conference, but the Knicks own the tiebreaker.

When you can dominate a sport purely with your physical skill, the mental game is an afterthought. Evan Turner has often said that he was at his best as a basketball player when he was 12 years old. The 76ers swingman recalls fondly schooling others who were about his age on the playground, in AAU games, and anywhere else he could find some competition. Back then, at 6-foot-1, he was taller and possessed far more basketball talent than most players his age. Not many players in the NBA possess much more basketball talent than their peers, and Turner is no exception.

According to a source who has spoken recently with Eddie Jordan and Doug Collins, both would be interested in becoming the next coach of the 76ers, a job made available yesterday when Tony DiLeo removed his name from consideration. Jordan is interviewing for the Sacramento Kings' vacancy today and tomorrow in Las Vegas, but the source, who confirmed Jordan's close relationship with Sixers general manager Ed Stefanski, said Jordan would be drawn to the Sixers' job because of the team's ability to contend.

New 76ers coach Doug Collins got what he wanted. Collins said he likes when NBA prospects produce pre-draft workouts that make a team reconsider its draft plans. Syracuse forward Wesley Johnson did just that Saturday at the Sixers' pre-draft workout at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. "You like someone and you want someone [else] to come in and make you think. That's what you love to do as a coach," said Collins, whose squad holds the No. 2 overall pick in Thursday's NBA draft.

Although the 76ers' path to relevance remains uphill, there is now a man to follow, a star player to be hopeful of, and a season to anticipate instead of dread. A week ago, none of that existed. A week ago, there were more than a half-dozen coaching candidates, a seemingly never-ending tunnel of mediocrity, and a general manager whose status was like a jump ball: up in the air. Now there is Doug Collins as coach; the No. 2 pick in the 2010 NBA draft - a.k.a. Evan Turner - as potential star player, and Ed Stefanski as the decision-maker with a newfound sense of security.

ORLANDO - Outside the University of Central Florida Arena, where Doug Collins was conducting his first practice as 76ers coach Friday, rain fell on a bronze statue of the college's mascot, an armored knight astride a galloping steed. The sculpture on Gemini Boulevard seemed an apt symbol for the task confronting Collins, the perpetually boy-faced whirlwind who is returning to Philadelphia and the troubled team that made him its first overall pick in 1973. After several conversations with owner Ed Snider, Collins, 58, knows that his quest is to rescue this distressed franchise, to arm himself with all his natural optimism and joust with the twin dragons that long have terrorized the 76ers: apathy and losing.

ROANOKE, Va. - When asked about his first game as an NBA head coach, Doug Collins rattled off the exact location, opposing coach, points scored, result, and successive outcomes. That was 1986. When asked how coaches recall such details, Collins replied, "I think we're all a little crazy, probably. " On Tuesday, the 76ers' new coach officially began the next phase of his career as his team played the New Jersey Nets in a preseason game at the Roanoke Civic Center. The game was the Sixers' first of the preseason.

Doug Collins returned to 76ers practice Friday after missing the final two games of the preseason so he could get medical treatment. Collins, 59, had tests and was treated for what neurologists determined was vertigo stemming from a concussion he suffered on Memorial Day. The Sixers coach said he was in a coffee shop in Phoenix when he fainted, hitting a table and a chair as he fell. Collins said he cracked his head on the concrete and shattered three ribs. He was in Cincinnati on Tuesday for the team's exhibition game against the Cleveland Cavaliers, but he left before it started when he experienced symptoms from the head injury.

The 76ers have looked for Evan Turner to grab rebounds, start the fastbreak when the opportunity presents, and to score more. It's something that Sixers coach Doug Collins has implored him to do. But one of his more pressing assignments going into Wednesday's win-or-go-home Game 6 victory over the Boston Celtics at Wells Fargo Center was to play a major role in helping to slow Boston's mercurial point guard Rajon Rondo. Not an easy task in this series, which has seen Rondo, on top of averaging 14.4 points and 14.6 assists through five games, mostly control the tempo in just about every game.

There was no reason this playoff series was going to get any easier, or any prettier, and neither of those happened Wednesday night in the Wells Fargo Center. What happened was even better as far as the 76ers were concerned, however. The Sixers played just well enough to beat a disjointed Boston Celtics team, 82-75, and force a Game 7 in the Eastern Conference semifinals on Saturday in the TD Garden. If you can't be proud of all the execution, at least be proud of the result, and the Sixers certainly were.

There is mutual admiration by coaches Doug Collins and Doc Rivers when talking about each other's point guard. Long before the Eastern Conference semifinal series between the 76ers and the Celtics reached win-or-go-home status - the winner will be determined in Saturday's Game 7 at Boston - Collins recognized that Boston's Rajon Rondo was capable of controlling not only the tempo of games but the series outcome as well. And Rivers, at the start of the series, had this to say about Jrue Holiday, the Sixers' third-year guard.

WATCHING the video from the Sixers' Game 5 loss on Monday night was going to be unpleasant, like Snooki trying to portray Margaret Thatcher instead of Meryl Streep. So Sixers coach Doug Collins, in order to soften the blow and change the negative vibe, went to the archives and also popped in footage from when the Sixers beat the Celtics in the 1982 Eastern Conference finals. The rivalry with the Celtics was at its best when Wilt Chamberlain traded elbows with Bill Russell in the 1960s, first as a Warrior and later as a Sixer.

Hours before Wednesday's game, fans and players alike were caught up in whether the "little guy" was in the house. "Is AI here?" Elton Brand asked a reporter two hours before the game. Fans were standing from the time they entered the Wells Fargo Center to try for a glimpse of Allen Iverson after word leaked that the former Sixers superstar would be in attendance. And the place exploded when Iverson came out of the tunnel close to the Sixers bench and, wearing a Lou Williams jersey and a Sixers warm-up jacket, handed the game ball to referee Joey Crawford.

Watching the video from the 76ers' Game 5 loss to Boston on Monday night in the Eastern Conference semifinals was going to be unpleasant - like Snooki, instead of Meryl Streep, trying to portray Margaret Thatcher. So Sixers coach Doug Collins, hoping to soften the blow and change the negative vibe, went to the archives and also popped in footage from when the Sixers beat the Celtics in the 1982 conference finals. The rivalry with Boston was at its best when Wilt Chamberlain traded elbows with Bill Russell in the 1960s, first as a Warrior and later as a Sixer.

IT DIDN'T TAKE long for the 76ers coaching staff to realize during Wednesday's Game 3 that it wasn't going to be a good night. Even after the team took a 10-4 lead in the early going against the Boston Celtics, associate head coach Michael Curry turned to head coach Doug Collins and said he didn't like what he was seeing. Even that early, blown defensive assignments were plentiful, just not exploited due to poor shooting by the Celtics. That didn't last long. Boston used a 28-8 run in the second to erase a seven-point deficit, then pounded home its offensive game plan to perfection to roll out a 16-point win and a 2-1 advantage in the best-of-seven Eastern Conference quarterfinal series.

BOSTON - Evan Turner, who had played the entire game taking way too many chances, wasn't going to risk another as he drove toward the basket with the Sixers trailing by one point and just over 40 seconds to play against the Boston Celtics on Monday night. The Sixers had led by 10 points late in the third quarter and saw that lead steadily drip away, just as it did in Game 1 of this series. If Turner didn't take care of the ball and get it safely to the basket, the Sixers were looking at another gee-whiz loss to the Celtics and a two-games-to-none series hole.

BOSTON - It's that time of the year when nearly every player lucky enough to still be playing is battling some sort of ache or pain. It's certainly no different for the 76ers. In Game 1 against the Boston Celtics on Saturday, forward Thaddeus Young was kneed in the shin by Celtics forward Ryan Hollins. The kneeing caused Young to also twist his right ankle. The ankle, he said, is feeling just fine, but the shin is giving him a little bit of a problem. Before Game 2 on Monday, Young was getting treatment and being fitted for a special pad to absorb any contact.

After two games of the Eastern Conference semifinal round between the Sixers and Boston Celtics, we know that Boston's wealth of experience gives them the edge at the end of close games and that the Sixers' youth and energy clearly tips a tight contest in their favor. In other words, after the teams traded one-point wins in the opening salvo of the series, we don't know much yet, but we know close games are probably here to stay. "Everybody always focuses on the last play of the game, but that's not really what games come down to. It's everything else that happens before, too," Doug Collins said.