The Sixers coughed up 21 turnovers against a Washington Wizards squad that barely applied pressure. They got a horrid performance from their frontline players. At 7-7, they're just a .500 team at the moment.

Based on their recent performances, the Sixers are rife with mediocrity. Predictably, after watching film and conducting a two-hour practice, coach Larry Brown took time out to detail every single one of the Sixers' deficiencies.

"We're not getting a lot of shots," Brown said less than 14 hours after Jordan dropped 30 points on his crew to lift the 4-10 Wizards to a 94-87 victory on Wednesday night.

"We're not shooting a good percentage. We're taking a lot of bad shots, which doesn't allow us to set our defense. We're turning it over a lot, which creates scoring opportunities. And it's hard for big guys to go 94 feet and not touch the basketball.

"We had a really good practice today, but we've got to get everybody on the same page, where we execute and where the ball moves. We're averaging 16 assists a game. It's horrible.

"It's probably the lowest in the league. We're one of the league leaders in turnovers. We're one of the worst in causing turnovers. And we've always been the best at that. So there's a lot of areas we need to address and get better."

John Smallwood of the Philadelphia daily news reports that If Allen Iverson didn't already have enough money for him and his family to be set for life, he does now - guaranteed.

The NBA's reigning Most Valuable Player has agreed to a "lifetime" marketing and endorsement contract with Reebok, the company announced last night before the 76ers' game with Washington at the First Union Center.

"I've never signed a contract in all the years that I've been with Reebok," said Paul Fireman, the chairman and chief executive officer of Reebok International Ltd. "This is the only time I've signed, literally, a lifetime contract - one in which we will work every day diligently on behalf of Allen and Reebok."

The agreement is really an extension of the 10-year, $50 million contract Iverson signed with Reebok after he was drafted No. 1 overall by the Sixers in 1996. Financial terms were not disclosed

Don't look now, but the Wizards have won just four of their first 14 games, and two of those victories have come against the Sixers. The Wizards, you might recall, won 19 games last season; the Sixers won 56 and went to the NBA Finals.

Never mind that the Sixers' Allen Iverson scored a game-high 40 points. This was reminiscent of the early days of Iverson's dynamic career, when he would put up imposing numbers and his team would get rocked. Whatever the Sixers did wrong in Sunday's loss in Toronto seemed to carry over, like some insidious wave of ineptitude.

The Sixers gave up 25 points on 21 turnovers, and despite pressing, forced a modest 10 turnovers by the Wizards. And while the Sixers finished with a 45-36 advantage on the glass, center Dikembe Mutombo - their best rebounder - took just five and never really got involved on either end of the floor.

"We played like a bunch of strangers on both ends,'' Brown said. "We're not playing like a team on either end. There's no aggressive defense, no continuity on offense. We had 16 assists, and that's like average. Can't have that. Can't have 16 assists and 21 turnovers. That's why we shoot such a low percentage. We don't create turnovers and allow ourselves to get easy baskets. Offensively, we're just out of sync.

A night after saying his team ''stinks,'' Michael Jordan scored 30 points as the Washington Wizards defeated the 76ers 94-87 on Wednesday night in Philadelphia.

Allen Iverson scored 40 points and Derrick Coleman added 15 for the Sixers. The defending Eastern Conference champions have lost two straight after winning seven in a row.

Washington won for just the second time in its last 10 games.

After Tuesday night's 94-75 loss at Cleveland, Jordan ripped his teammates for their lack of urgency and lackluster play on defense.

''I don't see anyone covering my back as everyone probably expected me to cover theirs,'' Jordan said.

Jordan came in shooting a career-low 40.2 percent and went 11-of-27 from the floor.

The Sixers went more than four minutes without a point in the fourth quarter, and the Wizards opened an 87-76 lead with 4:13 left, capped by consecutive jumpers from Jordan and Richard Hamilton, who had 28 points.

A free throw by Jordan made it 88-76 with 2:58 left, and Philadelphia didn't get closer than five points the rest of the game.

Sixers.com reports that the NBA has granted Philadelphia's request for a Disabled Player Exception to replace Matt Geiger. The Sixers waived Geiger on Nov. 21, 2001, and he subsequently announced his retirement from the game of basketball. The injury exception is worth $4,071,080. The Sixers have the injury exception until Dec. 24, 2001.

Reports have suggested that the Sixers may seek to use the Exception on a scoring forward rather than a backup big man.

The Exception will allow Philadelphia to trade for or sign a single player. Signing a player with the Exception seems unlikely when you consider that just about every free agent could be had with the veteran's minimum.

The Sixers cannot physically trade the Exception, they can only use it as a means to replace Geiger and it can only be used to acquire a player whose salary is equal to or less than the exception. Some names being mentioned by the press: Rodney Rogers, Othella Harrington, Raef LaFrentz, Dean Garrett and Grant Long.

The Sixers will likely find themselves stuck in Luxury Tax territory if they use the Exception.

There was much hue and cry from some corners of Philly when the Sixers traded Theo Ratliff for Dikembe Mutombo last season. While the deal was sure to provide an immediate boost, Ratliff was injured. If you recall, the car phone guys and gals wondered about the long-term viability of trading a young shot-blocker and rebounder like Ratliff for a dinosaur like Mutombo.

Well, Ratliff has played a grand total of two (2!) games for Atlanta since the trade and is now out for about eight weeks after having surgery on a bad hip last week.

Mutombo, of course, is still going strong and anchoring the Sixers' defence.

Seems the Sixers trade banged-up bodies for good ones with regularity.

They dealt Tyrone Hill to Cleveland last summer for a package that included Matt Harpring. Hill's bad back has kept him out the whole season and Harpring (when he's not disappearing like he did here Sunday) is performing admirably for the Sixers.

It was as easy as stepping into an old pair of slippers.

Matt Harpring didn't even have to wiggle his toes to know the fit was a good one.

The Philadelphia 76ers -- who reached the NBA Finals last season on the wings of Allen Iverson and the backs of gritty role players -- have embraced Harpring's football mentality.

If everyone blocks correctly for Iverson, he will carry them back to the Finals. And that's just fine and dandy with Harpring. It's the same reason that former Magic coach Chuck Daly loved Harpring during the player's rookie season in Orlando. Harpring put on blinders and plowed full speed ahead.

"Looking in from the outside, you would think, ?Allen gets 30 shots a game. What kind of team is that?'. " Harpring said. "But when you're with this team, it's just part of him, part of us. If he doesn't get 30 shots, it's like, ?Allen, what's wrong?' He needs to take that many for us to be good."

Harpring, now on his third team in four NBA seasons, has hit the jackpot in Philadelphia, a team that has embraced him. He will be negotiating a new contract next summer, and it couldn't come at a better time.

He's getting more playing time (35.3 minutes per game), scoring more points (13.3 per game) and grabbing more rebounds (7.6 per game) than ever. Opportunity doesn't have to knock twice for him.

Vince Carter scored 30 points, including a spectacular reverse dunk in the fourth quarter, and Dell Curry added 18 as the Toronto Raptors snapped the visiting Philadelphia 76ers' seven-game winning streak with a 107-88 victory Sunday.

The 76ers lost for the first time this season with Allen Iverson in the lineup. They started 0-5 while Iverson was recovering from elbow surgery, then went on their seven-game winning streak when he returned.

''Something unusual happened today,'' Iverson said. "We got outhustled. They just played better than us. You have to tip your hat.''

Morris Peterson added 14 points and Keon Clark 12 points and 10 rebounds for the Raptors, who shot 50 percent from the field and opened the game with an 11-0 run.

Aaron McKie scored 23 points and Derrick Coleman 21 for the 76ers. Iverson added 18 points and eight assists, but he shot only 7-for-24 from the field.

Allen Iverson, the NBA's reigning most valuable player and scoring champion, brings his Sixers to the Air Canada Centre today for the first time since that post-season series. If there was ever a question of Iverson's value to his team, it's been answered emphatically so far this season: Iverson missed the first five games and the Sixers went 0-5; he came back and ? presto! ? a seven-game winning streak.

Philadelphia scores more, almost 16 points a game, with Iverson; they shoot better from the field by about 2 per cent; they get about four more rebounds a game; their assists go up by about two and their turnovers drop by about five with the 6-foot-nothing guard commanding the squad.

"It's like chemistry more than anything," he said this week. "It's just, you know, this is my team. I'm a part of this team. I think with me not on the floor, it's just a different team. I think we're better when I am on the floor and that's just because I've been around these guys.

"We went to the Finals last year, and we're starting off this year without myself, Aaron McKie (also injured and now back) and Eric Snow (still out of the lineup)," he added. "It's a different team. Now we're getting back together and once we get Eric (back), he's the last piece of the puzzle, and we'll be ready for another title run."

The Philadelphia 76ers signed forward Michael Ruffin on Friday and placed Alvin Jones on the injured list with a sprained ankle.

Ruffin, 6-foot-8, played 116 games for Chicago during the last two seasons, averaging 2.4 points, 4.4 rebounds and 16.0 minutes per game.

In four years at the University of Tulsa, he averaged 9.4 points and 9.5 rebounds and shot 52.9 percent. Chicago drafted him in the second round of the 1999 draft.

Jones, a second-round draft pick this year, went on the injured list Oct. 29 because of tendinitis in his right knee. He was activated Nov. 9 and played nine minutes in five games.