The regular season is finally over and we have the third-seeded Philadelphia 76ers and the sixth-seeded Brooklyn Nets in the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs. This series is expected to showcase tons of star firepower from the Philadelphia side and a lot of quickness and versatility from the Brooklyn side.
We’ve all been excited for a Nets-Sixers playoff series ever since James Harden was traded by Brooklyn in exchange for Ben Simmons 14 months ago. The big difference now is that we won’t see Simmons or Harden’s past teammates, Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, who both also asked for trades to leave the Nets. Harden will be going against his former team which is now being led by guys who weren’t there before he left.
Despite the exit of their supposed Big 3, the Nets evidently did enough to clinch a sixth seed in the East. Their top six players have been very reliable on both ends of the floor, especially with their switchable defenders. The Sixers, meanwhile, have a big chance to advance—having been one of three teams that placed in the top 10 for both offense and defense this season.
Most compelling storyline
Philadelphia has one of the best players in the league enjoying the best year of his career, and it would be a gigantic task for the Nets to find a way to stop Joel Embiid from dominating.
If he’s out there doing what he’s been doing, the Nets really have no shot at getting past the Sixers. That is no guarantee though, especially since Embiid has a history of unwanted injuries and conditioning issues in the postseason. Nonetheless, it’s going to be a hard matchup for the Nets’ frontline.
The bright side is Nic Claxton had his best performance of the season (a 25-point double-double) against Embiid on January 25. Claxton kept Embiid down to only 26 points on 6-for-19 shooting in the same game, offering a bit of hope that he can reproduce some semblance of that effort in this series. Isolating the big fella will allow Brooklyn’s perimeter defenders to focus on the rest of the Sixers.
Another silver lining for the Nets is whenever the two centers have been directly matched up against each other this season, Claxton has scored 21 points opposed to Embiid’s 26 on superior efficiency. That’s a good thing since it goes beyond the eye test and the ridiculous 37-point showing of Embiid in their last meeting.
It’s going to be an upset for the books if the Nets can find Embiid’s kryptonite, if there is one.
X-factors
Currently, the Nets are tied with the Sixers in fast break points per game but Philadelphia is ranked 28th in fast break points by the opponent. Transition defense looks like the Sixers’ weakness all season as they have been more dominant in protecting the rim with Embiid on the floor.
Sixers should be careful in distributing the ball and getting back in transition before the small ball lineup of the Nets can. If Philadelphia can slow down the Nets and make them set up camp in the half-court, they will be in a much better position to stop them from getting easy shots. They already have the advantage inside the paint due to their size and length but it’s going to be more on how they can keep up with the quickness of the smaller scorers.
Winning blueprint
The Nets have the right players but might struggle against the Sixers considering that 30 of their 45 wins came from when Durant and/or Irving was still with the Nets uniform and winning only 15-18 without them. They are not the strongest sixth seed yet they have some hope to hang onto since they arguably have one of the best backcourts in the league.
Brooklyn has capable guys like Spencer Dinwiddie, Mikal Bridges, Joe Harris, Seth Curry, and Cameron Johnson, and they all need to level their game up in this series. Bridges has proved that he can indeed take it to a whole new level. He averaged 26.1 points for the Nets after the trade, and has scored at least 30 plus points in 11 games, including three games with 40-plus markers.
Dinwiddie will also have the Sixers’ hands full in the series as he has mastered getting his teammates involved, Harris and Curry are elite 3-point shooters, while Johson is an impressive 3-and-D player for Brooklyn.
Meanwhile, the Sixers can actually close this one out quickly if they just continue what they’ve been doing this season.
They can bank on their two top players, Embiid and Harden, to cruise past the first round. Embiid is a top MVP candidate, and rightfully so. His effective field-goal percentage (57.3 percent) and true shooting percentage (65.5 percent) were the best numbers of his career, capitalizing on his strengths in the paint. He took 59 percent of his shots in the paint where he shot at a career-high clip.
Harden has been a big factor in Embiid’s dominance, assisting on 174 of Embiid’s 491 field goals in the paint – 41 more than all other Sixers combined. Harden’s 244 total assists were 89 more than any other player in the whole league to a single teammate. Shutting these two superstars down should be the only formula for the Nets to escape the first round.
