Brett Brown didn't look like a man fractured by bad luck last week when he walked out of the Staples Center visitors' locker room after Philadelphia 76ers' NBA loss to the Los Angeles Clippers.
The head coach was calm, offered smiles and was focused on the positive.
"I'm quite used to dealing with this kind of stuff," Brown told a huddle of reporters in a hallway deep inside the downtown LA arena.
The 76ers have been decimated by injuries and their season could be slipping away.
Brown's Australian All-Star point-forward Ben Simmons has a nerve impingement in his back and he might not play again this season.
The 76ers' All-Star centre Joel Embiid has been out with a shoulder sprain and his commitment to the team questioned.
The horror run of injuries continued for the 76ers against the Clippers when starting shooting guard Josh Richardson suffered a concussion.
"You move on," Brown, maintaining his positive view, said.
"You look down the bench and think, 'Who else can come in? Boom! Next man up'."
The Clippers game was the first of a crucial four-game US west coast road trip for the 76ers as they attempted to avert a slide down the eastern conference standings.
Two days later the injury-ravaged 76ers were back in Staples Center facing LeBron James and the western conference-leading LA Lakers.
The hosts dominated with a 120-107 win.
Philadelphia fought back on Thursday with a 125-108 victory over the Sacramento Kings but on Saturday they imploded in the final 90 seconds against the Golden State Warriors - the NBA's worst team.
The Warriors won 118-114 despite being without All-Star trio Steph Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green.
The US-born Brown - who started his professional coaching career with the NBL's Melbourne Tigers in 1988 as an assistant to the great Lindsay Gaze and will be at the helm of the Boomers at July's Tokyo Olympics - is no doubt experienced at "dealing with this kind of stuff".
He became head coach of the 76ers in 2013 and oversaw what became known as 'The Process', the team's rebuilding phase where over four misery-loaded seasons his teams lost 253 of 328 games.
The 2019-20 season was set up to be the final chapter of 'The Process' and an NBA championship the prize.
The 76ers spent big in the off-season by signing Simmons to a five-year $US169.6 million contract extension, forward Tobias Harris to a five-year $US180 million deal and Al Horford to a four-year $US109 million contract.
Philadelphia, however, are sliding down the standings and Brown faces the likely prospect of being fired.
The 76ers have lost 10 of their past 11 road games and have won just 10 of 34 away from home.
They sit sixth in the eastern conference with 38 wins, 26 losses.
That optimism Brown showed a week earlier in that Staples Center hallway appears to be withering.
Brown had trouble stomaching the way the 76ers folded against the no-name Warriors squad.
"Losing tonight you can't camouflage the disappointment," a sombre Brown said.
from WWOS http://wwos.nine.com.au/basketball/76ers-nba-title-hopes-slipping-away/758c7620-4bcb-4879-b9d4-52ca80963912
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