Seven months ago, the Sixers were preparing to defend their Eastern Conference championship, and they were regarded as one of the serious contenders. Along with Milwaukee and Toronto.

But the Sixers started with five straight defeats and never recovered. For whatever reason, and it looked like tinkering for the sake of tinkering, they made the sort of sweeping personnel changes you would expect of a franchise that hadn't even made the playoffs, but certainly not from a finalist.

Into this inviting vacuum leaped New Jersey and Boston, and one of them is going to the NBA Finals. There their reward almost certainly will be the same dubious one given the Sixers last spring, which is to say the Lakers. Still, while the East is by far the least and the Nets and Celtics hardly without flaws, the inescapable reality is that they are playing on while the arena here is as dark as midnight in a coal mine.

The Nets won the East but lost three times in four games to Boston during the regular season.