PHILADELPHIA - Even as the losses piled up, the Nets and their go-get-um coach, Avery Johnson, took pride in their fight and resiliency.
Although they're not the most talented bunch, Johnson frequently points out, they're feisty. Not Saturday night. Not after a lackluster, dreary effort. Facing an opponent with one win in its previous nine games that was playing its fourth game in five days, the Nets cowered in the fourth quarter, falling, 102-86, to the 76ers.
"Very disappointed," Johnson said after the Nets were outscored 36-20 in the fourth quarter.
Brook Lopez, who led the Nets with 25 points, took it a step further. "We got in a little hole and we didn't have any effort to get back into it," Lopez said. "I think we kind of folded, which we haven't seen from this team all season. There's not really a good reason or excuse. We just didn't have that effort that we've had all season."
Johnson's reaction was to schedule a shoot-around before Sunday night's game in Newark against Portland, a rarity on back-to-back games. "We need to wake up the troops a little bit and see if we can get back on the court and get this taste out of our mouths," Johnson said. "We're not going to out-talent anybody. We've got to be on top of our game at both ends of the floor for long stretches, and we just kind of fell apart there."
Other than Lopez and Devin Harris, who had 19 points and six assists, the Nets - sans Troy Murphy, who was on the inactive list again, and Terrence Williams, who was demoted Friday to the D-League - had no one in double figures.
The score was tied after the third quarter, but the 76ers' undistinguished bench led the fourth-quarter charge - including 11 points from Lou Williams (15 total) and nine from Thaddeus Young (13).
"A poor fourth quarter," Johnson said. "They turned up the pressure on defense. They scored 36 points and we couldn't score or defend in the fourth quarter, which has been a problem for us lately."
MURPHY TO PLAY
Before the game, Johnson announced that Troy Murphy - the team's highest-paid player brought in to be the starting power forward - will be on the active list Sunday night vs. Portland. It would mark his first game in uniform since Nov. 13.
But the news caught Murphy, bothered by back and foot problems this season, by surprise. After hearing updates and criticisms about his fitness second-hand, the 30-year-old expressed frustration and confessed that he doesn't talk to Johnson, "not at all.
"You have to ask (Johnson about supposedly not being in shape)," Murphy said. "I've been in this league for 10 years. I know what I do. I pride myself in all that. You have to ask him."Just minutes earlier, Johnson said Murphy had been held out of the lineup and off the roster "out of respect to him.
"(It) was to let him get into better basketball shape. When we first got him back he just really wasn't as strong and his shot just wasn't going down," Johnson said. "Getting him back now, no matter how many minutes he plays, he's going to be much stronger than he was the first time.
"So maybe I rushed him back too soon."
Murphy had a back injury during training camp and missed the entire preseason and the first three games of the regular season. He started four games, playing limited minutes, before a sore foot caused him to sit out a game in Cleveland Nov. 10. Kris Humphries started in his place, and has started every game ever since.
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