Richardson injury forces Collins to shake up lineup

ONLY TWO GAMES into the season and coach Doug Collins was forced to tinker with his starting lineup for Game 3 as shooting guard Jason Richardson was out after spraining his left ankle against the New York Knicks on Sunday.

Dorell Wright took Richardson's spot Monday against the Knicks at the Wells Fargo Center. Collins also decided to start Kwame Brown at center, replacing Lavoy Allen. The move wasn't so much to slight Allen as it was to have a spark coming off the bench. Collins said before the season he wanted to play Spencer Hawes with Allen or another big body. With Hawes playing well coming off the bench and Brown fully recovered from a calf injury that hindered him during the preseason, Collins saw it as an opportune time.

As for Richardson's injury, suffered when he tripped over the foot of a cameraman, Collins wouldn't speculate as to when he might return. X-rays taken Sunday were negative. Richardson said it was just a sprain and vowed not to be out long.

"I don't like to miss games," the 12-year veteran said.

Nick Young took over primarily for Richardson on Sunday. Collins, though, wanted Young to keep coming off the bench and wanted to get Wright's good shooting into the starting lineup.

"We need his shooting out there," Collins said. "One of the things that we're really building on this year is that we're a good shooting team, and now we lose one of our shooters early in the year in J-Rich. That's going to be a big loss."

One thing the Sixers need, after scoring 84 points in each of their first two games, is offense. Collins thinks he will soon get more of it from Evan Turner, who shot 4-for-16 in the first two games, while scoring only 16 points.

"He just needs that breakout game," Collins said. "Just a breakout game where the ball goes in and he's in a good rhythm. Right now, he's just not in a good rhythm. He had 10 defensive rebounds [Sunday] and anytime he does that, we want him to get out to look and push that ball. So, hopefully, he can get in the open court a little bit more and do that. Evan naturally is not a lane runner. His tendency has been to always wait back for the ball, because he's always been the guy that had the ball. That's a habit that you are continually trying to break, so we can get out and throw ahead, and he can get out and we can get in the attack mode a little bit sooner, maybe we throw ahead to him and stuff. That's still a big adjustment for him.

"I was naturally a lane runner. When the ball changed hands, I was going to sprint out. Think of a guy like Rip Hamilton. His first instinct is to sprint out. Evan's first instinct is to sort of hang around and wait for the ball. That's just the way he's always played."

Collins was still lamenting Monday about his team's lackluster effort in New York. While saying he wouldn't make any excuses, Collins did have some explanation.

"I think the layoff hurt us," Collins said. "The Knicks had a game Friday night and had an edgy game against Miami. We played Wednesday and then Thursday, Friday and Saturday [practice]. Thursday was a very light day, we tried to practice [hard] on Friday and Saturday was sort of a light day, then we go up there on Saturday and a noon start and the clocks are rolled back . . .

"[Former Tennessee women's coach] Pat Summit talked at one of my clinics a long time ago and she said when she recruits young athletes, she walks into their home and there's three things she talks to them about: You have to bring energy, effort and execution, and she's only in charge of one of them. I'm in charge of the execution and players are always in charge of the energy and effort. For whatever reason, we were incredibly flat. I'm not taking anything away from the Knicks; they beat us. When it was a seven- or eight- point game, they were in control. We were a shot away maybe from hanging in, but they dominated the game. It was 2-2 and we had three guys walking in the backcourt. I don't know why."

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