PHILADELPHIA -- The Nets are going to break through one of these games. You just don't know what week or month it will be or who will be the one leading them to victory.

They are so banged up by the time this game ended they had eight players in uniform and seven guys unable to go. And had they pulled off the stunning upset, one Trenton Hassell would have been carried off on his teammates' shoulders.

Coach Lawrence Frank went on and on about Hassell's professionalism after his terrific game and deservedly so. Hassell went from playing just one game this season -- a total of eight minutes -- to starting and playing 46 minutes and nearly leading the depleted Nets to the unexpected victory.

But Hassell's all-out effort and those of all the Nets who played wound up being wasted. They fell, 97-94, to the Sixers and dropped to 0-6, setting a franchise record for the worst start in a season.

The record is significant and if the losing continues at this rate Frank will feel the heat. But the record really isn't that major because of what's happened to the Nets and that also should be taken into account with Frank's job security.

It was going to be a struggle anyway this season. Now add the fact that the Nets are minus starters Devin Harris and Yi Jianlian, valuable reserves Jarvis Hayes and Keyon Dooling and big man Tony Battie. Another starter Chris Douglas-Roberts didn't play last night because of flu-like symptoms and then starting shooting guard Courtney Lee left in the third period with a strained groin.

I don't care what team it is, if you're without four starters you're not going to win often.

"It seems like we keep losing bodies," Eduardo Najera said.

As bad as this season was projected, no one could have imagined a game in which Hassell would play 46 minutes and Rafer Alston over 40, and the last two offensive plays of the game were going to be a shot by Najera and a potential game-tying shot for Bobby Simmons. The last shot would have been taken by rookie Terrence Williams, but Andre Iguodala slapped it away just before the final buzzer sounded.

Despite all of that, this was a game the Nets should have won. Not should have in the same vein as the Minnesota game when they Nets led by 19 in the third or the Charlotte game when they were up 14 in the second and the Bobcats looking like they would have trouble scoring against Frank's CYO and JCC teams he talked about after this game.

No, the Nets should have won because of how hard they played and how much energy they expended to finally get a win. They really deserved to win this game when you saw everything they did to go up eight in the third period and still lead by six in the fourth. And to stay in the game and have shots to tie after a near four-minute drought in the fourth.

This was a game they should have won to get the proverbial monkey off their backs. But the Nets weren't down after this game as much as they were after a Washington blowout or the Charlotte loss or even their previous game, a second-half collapse against Denver. Probably because they know they couldn't have played any harder.

That's why the Nets are going to break through at some point, probably not Saturday night against the Celtics. But they will break through at some point unless they continue to break down.

Al Iannazzone covers the Nets for The Record (Bergen County, N.J.)