The seeds for the 76ers' 82-72 victory over the Miami Heat last night were planted during coach Larry Brown's pregame meeting with his players. And in a, shall we say, discussion between center Dikembe Mutombo and star guard Allen Iverson in the training room.
"Just two brothers talking, nothing insulting,'' Mutombo insisted after the Sixers had climbed back to .500 at 28-28. "Just a talk between two guys.''

Still, it was more than safe to say that Mutombo had not been pleased after Monday night's loss to Portland, when Iverson said that some of his teammates didn't know the plays.

Was this Mutombo firing back? "I didn't fire back,'' Mutombo said.

What then? "We locked the door,'' Mutombo said, laughing. "We didn't want anybody to hear. But it was no problem.''

The far larger problem, Mutombo said, was the situation in which the Sixers had placed themselves. They left the First Union Center last night tied with the Indiana Pacers for the No. 6 playoff seed in the NBA East, with an abiding respect for the race for the final three or four berths in the eight-team postseason field.

"We're fighting as hard as we can to survive,'' Mutombo said. "We have to keep our heads above water; otherwise, we're going to sink. We got to the point as a group where we realized no one was ready to go home. We want to see ourselves make something happen.''

Despite leaving the game with 1 minute, 11 seconds remaining with what was being termed a bruise of the left quadriceps, Iverson met afterward with reporters.

"We have to try to get better, not listen to anything negative, just try to stay together and play basketball,'' he said. "Once we start going one way and other people go another way, then we end up like the Sixers were when I first got here.''

Iverson knew what he had said after the loss to the Trail Blazers. They all heard Brown's comments about their inability to properly execute against a zone.

"I think the guys who have been around understand that we can turn things around,'' Iverson said. "But I don't know about the guys that haven't been here, because I haven't been around them a long time and you really don't know their character until you play a lot of games with them.

"I know the guys that have been here understand that we can win. And Dikembe coming in at the second half of last year should know that we can make some things happen.''

Iverson was not asked about his pregame discussion with Mutombo. Mutombo, who came to the Sixers at last season's trade deadline in the deal that sent Toni Kukoc and Theo Ratliff to Atlanta, seemed to have a firm grasp on that. And listening to Brown's pregame comments about the necessity of unifying seemed to help.

"We were caught by surprise [by Brown's approach],'' Mutombo said. "Usually, he comes in, sits in a chair and talks about the game. Today, he wanted everybody on the same page, told us what kind of a fight we're in, that it's going to be a fight night after night, that every game is going to be more important than it's ever been.

"It's already like a playoff situation. [If we don't win], it's going to be April 18 [the last day of the regular season] and we're going to be packing our bags, deciding what we're going to be doing this summer.'' *