The Sixers will face their real test when the NBA playoffs finally get started
Since they are expected to win most of their remaining games, the intrigue is whether the Sixers can beat the other good teams in the postseason.
The NBA playoffs can’t come soon enough.
Watching the 76ers beat up on the undermanned and/or overmatched opponents in their final regular-season games is like watching grass grow.
I’m longing to see the Sixers not only play against a quality opponent but when both teams’ key players are available.
That hasn’t been the case for some time, and it sure as heck wasn’t the case in home games against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Monday night and the Atlanta Hawks on Wednesday night.
The tanking Thunder had a who’s who of missing players in a 121-90 loss to the Sixers. Former Sixer Al Horford didn’t make the trip and has been shut down for the rest of the season despite being healthy.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (right foot plantar fasciitis), former Sixer Mike Muscala (right ankle sprain), Josh Hall (bilateral knee soreness), Lu Dort (right hip sprain), and Gabriel Deck (not with team) were also all out.
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The Hawks were just as depleted if not worse. Trae Young missed his fourth consecutive game with a left ankle sprain. Bogdan Bogdanovic (left hamstring soreness), Kevin Huerter (left shoulder sprain), former Friends’ Central School standout De’Andre Hunter (right knee soreness), former Westtown School standout Cam Reddish (right Achilles soreness), and Tony Snell (right ankle sprain) were also sidelined as the Sixers rolled a 127-83 victory.
The Sixers were in great spirits while beating those two squads by a combined 75 points. That marked the team’s largest margin of victory over a two-game span in franchise history.
Trust me, being healthy and beating up an OKC squad without Horford and Gilgeous-Alexander is expected. So is being healthy and routing a Hawks squad without Young and Co.
Things could get more competitive in Friday night’s contest against the Hawks. Snell was listed as probable on Friday’s 1:30 p.m. injury report, and Young and Bogdanovic are questionable.
But Clint Capela, who played Wednesday, is questionable with right heel pain, and Hunter, Reddish, and Huerter remain sidelined.
And, with the league’s easiest remaining schedule, according to tankathon.com, most of the Sixers remaining games shouldn’t be much more competitive.
Sure, there will be games in which the Sixers hold out players for rest. There will be other games, maybe against San Antonio Monday and Miami on May 13, when things could get interesting. But, for the most, the Sixers will be expected to win big when playing with their full allotment of players.
This homestretch could help the Sixers get their desired first-place finish in the Eastern Conference. They head into Friday night’s game with a 41-21 record and are 1½ games behind the Nets (43-20) with 10 games left.
Even if the Sixers win out and get the top seed, we still won’t know how good they are. That’s why I’m looking forward to the postseason.
I’m eager to see who the Sixers will face in the first round assuming they get the No. 1. But the real intrigue will come if they finish second.
If the season ended Thursday, the Sixers would face the winner of the Heat vs. Charlotte Hornets play-in series in the first round.
A matchup against Jimmy Butler and the Heat could be a tough opening-round draw for the Sixers. While he’d surely downplay it, everyone knows that Butler will be motivated to hand his former team a second straight first-round exit.
Assuming the Sixers advance out of the first round, things are going to get real from that point forward.
As the second seed, they would most likely face the Nets or Milwaukee Bucks. That’s when we’ll find out if the Sixers are actually contenders or pretenders who benefited from an easy schedule this season.
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If they’re the first seed, anything less than an Eastern Conference finals appearance would be considered a failure. That’s because they wouldn’t have to face Brooklyn or Milwaukee until the conference finals. They should be able to defeat potential second-round opponents in the New York Knicks and Hawks.
Facing undermanned and overmatched opponents are good for resting players and giving out-of-the-rotation players some playing time. But it also can provide a false sense of security.
Things will get real on May 22, and I can’t wait.