PHILADELPHIA – The Nets are limping toward the end of the season in more ways than one.

With seven games left, the Nets hope to win again. Hope is the operative word. It’s not going to happen unless the Nets change the way they approach these games.

Keeping with their recent trend of allowing teams to put them away early, the Nets were demolished 115-90 by the Sixers last night. It was one of their worst performances of the season, which is something we feel we’ve been saying plenty of lately.

“We looked tired,” coach Avery Johnson said. “Our legs looked tired. Mentally we looked tired. Very seldom have we had that quit spirit like we had tonight.”

Johnson said he could tell at shootaround the Nets didn’t have the right focus or mind frame heading into this game. He said they were “in the fog a little bit.”

The Nets have got injuries to key guys. But other than Wednesday’s game against the Knicks that they made their biggest of the season, the Nets have showed very little fight or urgency lately.

You can say the Nets don’t need to show urgency when they’re playing for nothing at this point, but we disagree. You’re always playing for something. You’re playing for your teammates, for each other, for the organization that is paying you millions of dollars, for the fans who pay to watch you play and, of course, for pride.

In three of the last four games, the Nets have showed very little pride. They trailed by 30 against the Hawks last Saturday, by 26 Monday at home against Houston and were down 35 to the Sixers.

“We are not in the playoffs,” Sasha Vujacic said. “We are playing for something. We don’t know what we’re playing for. We’ve got to put our heads together, and try to beat someone in the next [seven] games.”

The Nets definitely missed Kris Humphries last night. He was the latest Net to take his place in the infirmary. But his was back in New Jersey, where he rested and received treatment on a sprained ankle and bruised heel.

Now, only Brook Lopez and Travis Outlaw have been available for and appeared in every game as a Net this season.

Damion James has missed the most games – 34 after breaking his foot, three with a concussion and seven with recurring pain in the foot that could ultimately end his season. Next is Anthony Morrow, who was out 18 games. Jordan Farmar has sat nine total for different injuries.

Deron Williams has missed six because of his strained right wrist and he may have to sit out some more before the season is out. But Williams played last night against the Sixers and is expected to play in Sunday’s game against the Heat.

Overall, though, Williams is being called “day-to-day” by everyone involved. But at some point after Sunday’s game it won’t be surprising if the Nets say Williams won’t play again this season.

Johnson said there were conversations about shutting Williams down for the remainder of the season. If the Nets-Knicks game Wednesday hadn’t been switched to ESPN, there probably is a good chance Williams’ season would have been done already.

But the Nets did their homework and decided since Williams couldn’t further injure it, he would be able to play again. How much longer? That’s a question no one is willing to answer. But we have our theories.

“I’m just glad he got through the last game OK,” Johnson said. “He won’t practice anymore this year, contact. When we go through contact in shootaround he’s out of it. We’ll see how it goes. We’ve evaluated it. We’ve looked at all of the reports. We’ve gathered information from Utah. We talked to him, talked to the doctors that evaluated him, our doctors. That’s where we are: day to day.”

That’s where the Nets are, too. Day-to-day you don’t know whether the Nets are going to come to play or not, but you usually can figure it out pretty quickly lately.

Most of us can see in the first quarter, but Johnson had an idea this could be a rough night about eight hours earlier.

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Follow me on Twitter: @Al_Iannazzone

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