Sixers, Green staying positive despite slump

Willie Green goes into every NBA season knowing two things. One, there will be stretches where the basket seems as wide as a hula hoop and he's sure almost everything he tosses up will go in.

The reverse of that, unfortunately, is also true. Occasional shooting slumps are to be expected over the course of an 82-game schedule, even for the Kobes and LeBrons, and the only thing Green or any other misfiring player can do is to wait them out.

The last three games, all defeats, have not been good for many of the 76ers, but it seems as if Green, the Sixers' starting shooting guard, has struggled more than most to regain his stroke. After going 0-for-9 in Saturday's 97-91 loss at Miami, the 6-year veteran out of Detroit Mercy is now 9-for-34 during the slide, including clanks on all eight of his three-point attempts.

Worse, Green's cold snap has pretty much lasted the entire month of February. With the exception of a 23-point performance on 9-for-17 shooting in a 99-94 victory over the visiting Indiana Pacers on Feb. 5, Green is 20-for-64 (31.3 percent) from the field, and 0-for-14 from beyond the arc.

To a man, the Sixers profess their belief that a breakout game is right around the corner, maybe even tonight at the New Jersey Nets. But remember: The mother of all shooting slumps descended upon the team the last time they played the Nets, the Sixers missing their last 18 shots and going scoreless over the final 10 minutes, 37 seconds of the fourth quarter to lose, 85-83.

The good news - maybe - is that the Nets (24-32), who have lost their last five outings, are struggling even more than the Sixers. And since this isn't soccer, at least one of these post-All-Star-break winless outfits is guaranteed to procure a much-need victory tonight.

"This team is resilient," Sixers coach Tony DiLeo said yesterday after a late-afternoon practice at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. "I know our guys are ready to get back on the winning track. I thought we played good enough to win the [Miami] game. A couple of breaks down the stretch didn't go our way, but I was pleased with the effort."

DiLeo continues to publicly support Green, who will draw the unenviable defensive assignment tonight against the Nets' slashing point guard, Devin Harris, but Green's decreased minutes suggests otherwise. Green played 28 minutes, 54 seconds last Tuesday at Indiana, 25:37 a night later in a home game against Denver, but only 17:27 at Miami.

"It's tough for Willie because he knows he's playing the first quarter and he has to do his thing," DiLeo said. "Maybe there's a little bit of pressure to try to get going early.

"We need to try to get him some easy shots. But Willie's the type that can turn it around in a second. He has a scorer's mentality. In [tonight's] game, he can go out and get 25."

For his part, Green said his shooting slump has not endured so long as to impair his confidence. He has been a serviceable shooter since he began playing basketball as a kid, and he understands that the only way to break out of this sort of funk is to not get down on yourself.

"I feel fine," he said. "It doesn't really faze me to go through a shooting slump. You have them every year. Every year I've been playing I'll go through a stretch where I'm not shooting the ball like I did before. It's part of the game.

"You try to have an impact elsewhere, and you keep shooting. Eventually, you'll get back on a roll. I know my shots are going to fall. I know how to get to the basket, how to get to the free-throw line."

Andre Iguodala said he and the rest of the Sixers have encouraged Green to continue doing what he always does.

"If you start changing things, you start second-guessing yourself," Iguodala said of the trap Green and other cold-shooting Sixers need to avoid falling into. "If you keep shooting the ball, if you keep taking the same shots, eventually it'll come around. The more you shoot, the faster you'll come out of it.

"Willie is a very valuable asset to our team. As long as he plays with confidence, he's going to turn it around."

Center Samuel Dalembert, a native of Haiti, showed some soccer skills after practice to the Harlem Globetrotters' Anthony "Buckets" Blakes, who also knows a thing or two about bouncing a ball off his head. The Trotters will play a game against the Washington Generals on the roof of the Wachovia Spectrum on March 3 before playing in the Wachovia Center on March 8. *