They sure don't make Eastern Conference champions like they used to.

	Iverson let Game 1 slip away, but the Pacers had a lot to do with it.

Not like the old Bulls, who went 18-0 in the first round during their six title runs. Not like those old Michael Jordan outfits, who beat up No. 8 seeds by an average of 15 points a game, and mauled their first playoff foes by at least 10 points in 12 of those 18 wins.

No, sadly, the standards have dropped to the point where the No. 1 seed in the East has lost its home playoff opener in two of the last three seasons.

Following Miami of 1999, which didn't even survive the first round, the Sixers are the latest defective Eastern champ. Tuesday night, they face a must win in First Union Center against No. 8 Indiana, last year's flawed No. 1 seed. If you remember, the Pacers needed some favorable whistles down the stretch of Game 5 at home a year ago just to oust the Bucks by a point.

So it goes in the East, which hasn't had a dominant team since Jordan walked off the Delta Center court with Title No. 6 in June 1998.

Larry Brown could see the flaws in his own team even before the Pacers stunned the Sixers in Game 1.

"The thing I always admired about the great teams, the mini-dynasties like Chicago, was that they brought their A game every night," said the Sixers coach. "They knew that every night they stepped on the court, it was the other team's biggest game of the year. And Chicago always responded to that challenge.

"All year, I've been trying to let our guys know that we're the target for teams now. A team like Chicago or the other great teams could play 82 games at a high level, and that I always thought was an incredible accomplishment. But we're the kind of team where we have to play with that kind of energy every game or we can lose."

Then Brown said something that summed up the No. 1 seeds in the East since the Bulls broke up their dynasty:

"We can beat the best, or we can easily lose to the worst."

	“	But in the regular-season, we'd never lose to the teams that we were supposed to beat. Michael wouldn't let us. He set the tone. But we were a great team back then. ”
		— Horace Grant on the old Bulls

Now when did you ever hear someone say that about the Bulls? Never. Did you hear what Allen Iverson said after the Sixers blew an 18-point second half lead in Game 1?

"We had a game right here at home and we let it slip away. Now, it's going to be harder on us, but nothing in life is easy."

	Rose

	Best

In the opening round? Has it come to that in the East? It has. With Miami winning on the final night of the regular season, that prevented the conference from fielding its fewest number of 50-win teams since 1979. The East had three teams that won at least 50 games, while seven of the eight playoff teams in the West won 50.

Then Iverson talked about looking forward to the "challenge" of coming back in the series.

Excuse me, a challenge in the first round? Jordan, Phil Jackson and Scottie Pippen never uttered those words, not when they normally made the opening round a cakewalk.

As hard-nosed as the Sixers are, they don't intimidate opponents like the Bulls used to. Then again, neither did the '99 Heat, who were toppled on their own court by the Knicks in Game 5, or last year's Pacers, who suffered six playoff losses before they ever played the Lakers in the Finals. The common denominator shared by the three? They don't have a superstar in Jordan's class, or even Shaquille O'Neal and Tim Duncan's class.

	Miller

Plus, if there's one team that isn't going to be intimidated by anyone, it's the Pacers. When you can put out Jalen Rose, Reggie Miller, Travis Best and Austin Croshere every night -- mainstays from last year's team that lost to the Lakers in 6 -- that's more talent right there than some of the higher-seeded teams in the East.

Even if they did underachieve at 41-41 in Isiah Thomas' first season as coach.

"A lot of people don't realize that we're the defending Eastern Conference champions, not just a junk team,? Rose said after Miller fired in the game-winner on Sunday. "We have no reason to be satisfied. We expected to be in this position. For the people who didn't understand it was going to be a series, now that we won Game 1, they realize it's a series.?

They hardly were competitive in Chicago's heyday. In their six first-round sweeps, the Bulls won by an average of 20, 18, 16, 23, 6 and 8. They were really pushed in only a handful of games, mostly in the last two years of the dynasty. Otherwise, they used the first round as merely a tuneup.

"Those games were automatic," said Horace Grant, part of the first Three-peat. "But in the regular-season, we'd never lose to the teams that we were supposed to beat. Michael wouldn't let us. He set the tone. But we were a great team back then."

And the East hasn't had one, since.

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