The rebounding has been wretched. The shooting pathetic. The health situation miserable. The transition defense questionable.

And there’s still a whole second half of the season to go for the Nets.

Last night’s game against Chicago at the Meadowlands was the 41st game of the season, the midpoint, for coach Byron Scott’s crew. For a team that stormed into training camp with lofty, but seemingly achievable goals, the first half has been anything but a high point.

Including last night, the manpower games lost to injury numbered 151. It doesn’t require Einstein to figure that the Nets again are on course for a 300-game total, a number usually considered unthinkable in most NBA franchises but is virtually a matter of routine in New Jersey.

That health picture has been the most disappointing element for Scott, even more than the record, which was 13-27 after Friday’s defeat in Philadelphia where the Nets wasted a strong comeback effort which came after they started as sacrificial lambs. Even when the Nets, who had won two straight, learned Allen Iverson would be a no-go because of a sore and bruised left knee, they failed to show up until the second half.

“It was maddening because you’re making progress as a team. You’re facing a real good team, you’ve got a chance to show you’ve improved and you come out with a real lackadaisical effort,” Scott said, fuming. “You let their aggressiveness take you out of everything, you let them just punish you. I’m not trying to be negative about women, but it’s almost like women basketball against the men. Guys hit them and they squirm and everything and kind of shy away. And that’s what our guys were doing.”

Yet another sorry moment in a first-half gone bad.

“The most disappointing thing to me is we haven’t had a full roster of the guys I expected to be here,” said Scott, who after learning on the very first day of training camp learned last year’s leading rebounder Jamie Feick required ankle and Achilles surgery and that the since-returned Lucious Harris needed a hernia operation, then saw Keith Van Horn felled by a broken leg.

And then there is the whole saga of Kerry Kittles who is expected to play again this season by no one other than the doctor the NBA used to examine him before denying the Nets a medical exception. But not all has been on the dark side for Scott. There actually has been some positives, other than the lack of the Meadowlands building falling into the swamp at any point during the first 41 games.

“I think the most encouraging part is our two best players at this particular point are starting to play real well,” Scott said of Van Horn and Stephon Marbury, who formed the nucleus of most pre-season strategies. “And the other guys are following behind.

“The other thing that’s encouraging is the acquisition of Aaron Williams and the way he’s playing,” Scott said of the Nets main free-agent, off-season signing, other than their own players. “That’s been a very encouraging sign.”

The bottom line of course has been the record. And there are times when Scott can’t believe those standings when he sees them each day.

“If anybody would have told me we’d be 13-27 at this particular point, I would have told them they were crazy,” Scott admitted. “But I expected Keith to be here and Jamie so I’m not real disappointed with the record right now. I think there’s been some progress. The guys are learning to play together and play hard every night and that’s what we’re going to work on for the next 41 games.”

And maybe the first thing Scott set out to do was focus on playing hard not only for 41 games, but for 48 minutes each game. Far too often the Nets have displayed an appalling inconsistency, not only from game-to-game, but from half-to-half or quarter-to-quarter. The latest example was Friday when the Nets wasted the no-Iverson chance.

Instead of leaping on the Sixers and going for the jugular, the Nets came out in comatose fashion – prompting Scott’s ill-advised comment that they played like women. And that was even after the Nets regrouped and staged a furious rally that carried them from 21 points down to within three. But that was as close as they got in the fourth quarter. They expended too much energy making the run and had nothing left.

“Sometimes, when you’re almost there and don’t get over the hump, you slip back down a little,” said Van Horn, who finished with just 10 points after going off for 51 combined in his previous two games.