Philadelphia 76ers: It Is Hard to Win Without a Center

The wheels have started to fall off the Philadelphia 76ers' bus. With both Spencer Hawes and rookie Nikola Vucevic unable to play, the Sixers dropped another home game in overtime. This time it was was to the lowly New Jersey Nets.

Hawes missed his fifth consecutive game while Vucevic missed his second. The ancient Tony Battie tried to fill in at center but was ineffective, so Elton Brand had to take over that role—which caused him to pile up personal fouls and eventually foul out.

Without a powerful force in the middle, the Nets' Deron Williams was able to penetrate and score 34 points to lead the Nets to the overtime win. This is essentially the same thing that Andre Miller did to the Sixers in the Nuggets' overtime win just one week earlier. There is a disturbing pattern developing here.

Either Jrue Holiday needs to pick up his defensive play against the opposing point guards, or one of the centers needs to return to the lineup to defend the lane.

This weekend, the Sixers have games against the 3-16 Bobcats and the 4-15 Pistons. Maybe the team can use these two games to get their act back together before the Magic come to town on Monday night.