Spencer Hawes

GAMES ARE really like a search-and-rescue mission for 76ers coach Doug Collins. After he puts his starters out on the floor to begin the game, he is quickly searching for a combination throughout the contest that will rescue what is usually a poor beginning. Sunday against the visiting Cleveland Cavaliers, Collins had to find a way to keep mercurial point guard Kyrie Irving in check while also limiting the play of quick big man Anderson Varejao Add to that Collins' team again not being able to find its shooting touch and you start to understand how difficult his mission is on some nights.

Two days after he swatted away five shots by the Denver Nuggets in the 76ers' 84-75 season-opening win on Wednesday, Sixers reserve center Spencer Hawes said that what happened did not exactly defy logic. "They were putting them up there," said Hawes, who helped the Sixers block 11 shots. "If they are going to keep putting them up there, you've got to keep slapping them away. " The game marked the sixth time in his career that the 7-foot-1 Hawes has blocked at least five shots. However, this might be the first time Hawes - who also finished with a game-high-tying 16 points, 12 rebounds, and 5 assists - has done so as a reserve.

As good as they were at the defensive end last season, the 76ers believe that they will be even better during the 2012-13 season. That remains to be seen. But after the Sixers limited the Denver Nuggets to 37 points in the second half and held off a late rally for an 84-75 victory in their season opener Wednesday at Wells Fargo Center, who is going to argue? "That was a grind-it-out win," Sixers coach Doug Collins said after the Sixers ruined the homecoming of former Sixer Andre Iguodala.

ON A NIGHT that celebrates disguises, the 76ers did a very nice job of masking what is problematic about their offense. With Andrew Bynum still saddled with a bruised knee, there really isn't much of an offensive inside presence for the club. So the Sixers rely on defense, fastbreaks and three-point shooting. It has been that way for the past few years for this team offensively, but this season the main deficiency is offset by a plethora of good outside shooters, alert passers and crafty penetrators.

Lavoy Allen entered his rookie season with the 76ers without the highest of profiles. He had starred at Pennsbury High and Temple, but Allen, the 50th overall selection in the 2011 NBA draft, probably exceeded the expectations of Sixers fans simply by making the team. Even better, Allen contributed as a rookie and became a vital frontcourt performer in the postseason for the Sixers. This season, his profile, and likely his playing time, will rise. Even with the addition of Andrew Bynum, Allen was expected to see his share of time at power forward and possibly center.

BESIDES COACH Doug Collins, no one with the 76ers is going to have to make more adjustments this season than Spencer Hawes. While Collins is still in the process of molding new pieces, Hawes' preseason has been puzzling, to say the least. When the team acquired Kwame Brown, Collins considered moving Hawes from his normal center position to the power-forward spot. When Andrew Bynum was acquired in the blockbuster deal, Hawes was cemented as the four-man beside Bynum. Bynum, of course, hasn't seen the floor yet this preseason as he tries to strengthen his troublesome knee, so Hawes hasn't had the luxury of trying to fit into the four slot with his new running partner.

Of all the working parts that must come together if the 76ers are going to realize their potential, transitioning Spencer Hawes from center to power forward - a position he has never played - is low on the list. One week after the Sixers re-signed Hawes to a two-year, $13 million deal, they signed 6-foot-11, 270-pound Kwame Brown. Sixers coach Doug Collins anointed Brown the starter and immediately said Hawes would start at power forward. The blockbuster trade for center Andrew Bynum partially scuttled those plans, relegating Brown to the bench but not altering the plans for Hawes, who welcomes the opportunity to play power forward alongside the massive, 285-pound Bynum.

LAST SEASON, the Sixers got out to a 10-3 start before center Spencer Hawes was felled by an Achilles' injury that ultimately cost him 27 games. The team struggled without its center, who before the injury had been playing perhaps the best basketball of his pro career, shooting the ball extremely well, passing the ball with precision out of the post and rebounding the way a center should. All in all, Hawes missed 29 games (one with a back strain, another DNP-CD) and the team went 13-16 without him. In the 37 games in which he appeared, they won 22. Without him, coach Doug Collins was forced at times to start untested and unproven rookies Lavoy Allen or Nikola Vucevic in the middle.

When the Sixers gather for the opening of training camp in nine days, coach Doug Collins will face the daunting task of making the pieces - there are far more here than at any other time in the previous two seasons - work together. Despite all the brand-new pieces that everyone is so excited about, the new faces in new roles - and some old ones in some new roles as well - will have to work hard to make necessary adjustments. This is especially true of the frontcourt, particularly at power forward, where playing time will be contested fiercely.