Addition of veterans will make difference for 76ers

PHILADELPHIA » In that part of the NBA season where exhaust rules, on consecutive nights, in games against ordinary teams 90 miles apart, the 76ers were in a position to act like their familiar, old selves.

They would play in New York, and they would fall quickly behind against the Knicks, relaxing on defense, dripping away turnovers. A night later, they would play at home, and for many of the same reasons they would trail the Nets. Each night, they looked a little tired, a little slow, a little disoriented and a lot like that operation that had just spent four years trying to win draft picks instead of playoff spots.

And then … they turned on their defense and won in Madison Square Garden.

And then … they looked like championship contenders to win again, literally fighting off Brooklyn in a game officiated by pro wrestling rules.

Playoff teams, and Brett Brown’s team will be one, are supposed to suppress inferior, in-division opponents. But T.J. McConnell, just to identify one who has been around for a while, knows that would not, could not have happened last season, or the year before that. And he knows why. It is because huddles once dominated by confused, young faces have come to include J.J. Redick and Amir Johnson, Marco Belinelli and Ersan Ilyasova … veteran players, accomplished in the NBA and internationally, play