Doug Collins

THE SECURITY blanket that 76ers coach Doug Collins once coveted was the play of his bench. Last season, Lou Williams and Thaddeus Young provided instant spark nearly every night, often pulling the club out from the holes created by sluggish starts. And while those times may return when the team gets completely healthy, right now Collins is struggling to just find some consistency from his subs. In the first 15 games of this season the Sixers were getting 30 points a game from the bench, mainly from Nick Young, Dorell Wright and Spencer Hawes, with a sprinkling of Maalik Wayns, Kwame Brown and Royal Ivey.

IF THE 76ERS are feeling the pressure of the desperate times that are upon them, they certainly are masking it well. With a four-game deficit staring at them for the eighth and final postseason spot in the East and the lowly Orlando Magic providing the competition Tuesday, it would have seemed to have been the perfect time to start the stampede toward the playoffs. Instead, the Sixers looked more like a team playing out the string in losing their sixth in a row, this time by 98-84.

DOUG COLLINS is a man overflowing with competitiveness, someone who exudes energy. Patience is about as easy to find in him as love handles on a supermodel. But the way this 76ers offseason has played out, it appears that, as much as Collins wants his team to win now, the plan is really for the future. As much as the coach talked about his excitement at putting together this season's team, with new acquisitions in Nick Young and Dorell Wright and rookies Maurice Harkless and Arnett Moultrie, the underlying feeling was that there was just as much excitement that the team also is made up of very good, somewhat cheap contracts.

In honor of center Andrew Bynum, who didn't make a public appearance in the Wells Fargo Center during Tuesday night's game against the Orlando Magic, his 76ers teammates didn't show up, either. A season that has become a long trudge through quicksand took another stumbling step toward oblivion with a 98-84 loss to the Magic. If the prospect of losing the game ever concerned the Sixers, it wasn't noticeable. "I certainly didn't see this effort coming. It's mind-numbing to me," coach Doug Collins said.

Don Chaney and Billy McKinney are out with the Detroit Pistons, and Doug Collins is in. Chaney was fired as coach and McKinney resigned as vice president of player operations yesterday. The jobs will be combined and handed to Collins, whose hiring was expected to be announced at a news conference Saturday. Pistons president Tom Wilson emphasized that Collins has yet to sign a contract, but he made it clear that the former Sixers player and former Chicago Bulls coach is leaving his job as a color commentator on TNT's NBA telecasts to take charge of the Pistons.

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.

EVANSTON, Ill. - Even when Chris Collins was a ball boy at long-gone Chicago Stadium, wiping up the sweat of Michael Jordan, his father, who was the Bulls coach at the time, sensed that coaching was in his future. That belief became a reality on Tuesday. "I know that sounds crazy, but I've always felt Chris had that about him," 76ers coach Doug Collins said. With the elder Collins watching in the front row with his arm draped around his granddaughter Kate, Chris Collins was introduced as the new men's basketball coach at Northwestern, a program seeking its first NCAA tournament bid. He comes to Northwestern after 13 seasons on the staff at Duke, under Mike Krzyzewski.

TO ANYONE who will listen - or even doesn't want to - Sixers guard Jeremy Pargo will talk endlessly about his proud college, Gonzaga University. Naturally he was a little chirpy Monday after his Zags had locked up the top seed in the West. Teammates Lavoy Allen (Temple) and Evan Turner (Ohio State) were the only others in the locker room who could join in the conversation of their colleges attending the Big Dance. Coach Doug Collins has just as much interest, probably more so, than any of his players, however.

BOSTON - When Doug Collins and Doc Rivers left the TD Garden after morning shootarounds Friday, there were 30 NBA head coaches. When they returned for the game later in the day, there were 29. The Los Angeles Lakers, off to a 1-4 start, fired Mike Brown during the day and named Bernie Bickerstaff as interim coach. Both Collins and Rivers have been down that road before. Rivers was fired by Orlando before getting the Boston Celtics job, and Collins has been fired by Detroit, Chicago, and Washington.