HERE'S THE KEY ingredient of Allen Iverson's rambling and wildly entertaining news conference:

"I'm the only one going through it,'' he said at one point on Tuesday.

Here's a key ingredient of Larry Brown's rambling and much less entertaining news conference yesterday, after someone asked him whether publicly criticizing his only star player Saturday was wise.

"I don't want to get into that,'' Brown said. "I listen to coaches all over this league. I never pointed a finger at things that I'm in control of. When I'm talking about things with Allen, I'm talking about issues that he's in control of.

"This whole issue started by me answering a question as honestly as I possibly could,'' Brown said, sounding as defensive as his star did the day before. "And it turned out it was somebody who was acting like I thought that's the reason we lost...''

Well...Why wouldn't the reporter think that? One day after being eliminated from the postseason, with decades of coaching savvy under his 61-year-old belt, Larry Brown singled out Iverson before he got to the rest of this creaky, often clueless 76ers team he assembled.

Why so soon? Why Iverson first?