Less than 24 hours after twisting his ankle badly enough that he had to be helped off the court, Samuel Dalembert was back in the lineup against New Jersey.
“We have a great staff,” Dalembert said before Saturday’s game. “Yesterday we kept it under control soon after everything happened and this morning we kept it under control. I used my (hyperbaric) chamber. …We used some of the electro-magnetic thing from the doctors we have. I don’t know which one is working. I did a lot of treatment this morning with our trainer and our staff stays on top of it.”
Dalembert, who usually forgoes taping, had his left ankle heavily taped. He said his ankle felt fine when he ran, especially after he had warmed up.
But there’s almost no doubt that part of the reason Dalembert was so determined to play was his streak of 235 straight games – 236 after Saturday’s start – intact.
“It’s something I wanted to do so bad for myself,” he said.

Sixers forward Thaddeus Young was scheduled to host 200 kids from the Dryades YMCA and the New Orleans Recreation Department Basketball Skills Program for Monday’s game against the Hornets in New Orleans. He is also scheduled to meet with them after the game.

Born in New Orleans, Young became involved with the Dryades Y in the summer of 2005 when he visited the Y to see how construction was going after a fire destroyed the gym in 2000. Impressed, he asked if he could come back when the building was completed to shoot the first hoop as part of the grand reopening, but later that summer Hurricane Katrina intervened.

While the building survived, construction was set back. When Young returned to New Orleans during his rookie season, he was pleased to see the organization up and running and hosted 100 kids at the Sixers game in November of 2007.

Young has other strong connections to New Orleans including his father, Felton Young, who was an All-State basketball player at Holy Cross High School in the early 1970's; his sister, Talisha Young, a redshirt member of the University of New Orleans Privateers Women's Basketball team; and his second cousin Karen Carter Peterson, a Democratic member of the Louisiana House of Representatives, representing the 93rd District since 1999 and serving as Speaker Pro Tempore since 2008. Ms. Peterson led the Obama campaign in Louisiana and was also instrumental in bringing the Hornets to New Orleans from Charlotte.

Elton Brand won’t play tomorrow night when the Sixers host Portland.

But after his second straight practice, he’s optimistic that he’ll be back on the court soon, maybe as soon as this weekend.

“We’re gonna leave it up to the training staff, the doctors,” he said. “We’re gonna meet again, but maybe both or maybe the second one. It’s gonna be gradual. It’s not gonna be an automatic 38 minutes.”

Although Brand’s minutes might be monitored, he said he won’t hold back on the court.

“I just can’t play like that. That’s how I got in this position in the first place. I’ve just got to dive for loose balls, block shots and anchor the defense and score buckets, do what I have to do.”

PHILADELPHIA – When Larry Brown walks into the Wachovia Center it’s like he’s visiting royalty and the stream of pre-game visitors is nearly constant.

It is one of Brown’s quirks that he doesn’t find it at all odd to be the head coach of one NBA team while gushing about another.

“I live here,” Brown said before his Charlotte Bobcats took on the Sixers. “This owner (Ed Snider) has been… After I lost my job in New York he gave me a great opportunity to come back and stay involved. There are a lot of people I’m really fond of.”

And when Brown says he lives here, he means that literally. He has kept his Main Line home where his wife, Shelly, and their two children, L.J. and Madison, reside full time and Brown gets back as often as he can. On Christmas Eve, for example, Brown took a chartered jet from Charlotte to Philadelphia, and brought local players Matt Carroll and Sean Singletary with him.

It wasn’t his first trip back, either. He squeezes in visits whenever a break in the Bobcats’ schedule allows.

“They’ve always been good to us so it’s great coming back,” he said of the Sixers and the city. “Now we have a World Series Championship and maybe even a Super Bowl. It’s pretty neat.

“This franchise is an important part of my life. I had an unbelievable experience being part of it.”

BROWN ON DiLEO

Brown expressed his sympathy over the firing of Maurice Cheeks, to whom Brown was close.

But he also has a solid relationship with Tony DiLeo, who replaced Cheeks.

“Nobody’s been more loyal to this franchise than Tony,” Brown said. “He’s contributed in so many ways. I know when I was coaching here he was always somebody I could count on. He had great input about the draft. You hope it works out for everybody.”

For his part, DiLeo said he learned a lot about coaching from watching Brown during his six years in Philadelphia.

“He had a big influence on my coaching philosophy because his teams always play hard, they always play defense,” DiLeo said. “He’s a teacher. He sees things out on the court a lot of people don’t see. He pays attention to detail and makes sure things are right. Those are a lot of things we’re trying to do. We’re trying to be a great defensive team. We’re trying to play hard every night, pay attention to detail. That was Larry’s biggest influence on me.”

HOME COURT

Brown has another little quirk that he’s used for years. He’ll start players when the team goes to their hometown.

Friday night, that meant Carroll and Singletary started at guard.

“If you’ve got a guy on your team who does things the right way and you know he’s coming home and he’s got a lot of friends,” Brown said. “ I’m sure those two guys are using more tickets than anybody else. How many times do their friends and family get to see them play as starters. You’re just showing them you appreciate what they’re doing and what they’re about.”

The practice was adopted from Dean Smith, Brown’s coach at North Carolina.

“I always feel good about it,” he said. “I played for a coach that at the end of the game he’d take you out so you’d get a big hand. He tried to take kids to play in their hometowns. If they came to North Carolina he’d schedule games for them. I think anything you can do to show them you appreciate what they’ve done is helpful.”

Andre Miller’s contract expires at the end of this season, and it’s no more certain now than it was last season that Miller will re-sign with the Sixers.

“We’ve been talking to Andre’s agent and neither party has come to any conclusion,” Stefanski said. “I think time will tell on all these things as far as your personnel. I just don’t think we’re there yet to make a decision either way.”

For his part, Miller said he’s trying to focus on his job.

“I haven’t talked about anything,” Miller said. “It’s not really important right now. Every player thinks about that for a little bit, but I’m just trying to block it out and concentrate on the rest of the season.”

Whether he’ll spend the rest of the season here or not could be up in the air as well. The trade deadline is Feb. 19, and if the Sixers still aren’t playing well, moving Miller might make sense.

But Miller said he doesn’t want to be the player who demands a trade to a contender.

“I don’t know,” he said. “My career, I’m almost 33. Every player wants to be on a contender, but I don’t want it to seem like if I was going that way, that it would be a bailout on the team. But I do understand that it’s a business. I’m not going to fall into that trap. I’m just going to continue and go out and do my job.”