Right on schedule, Sixers encounter stretch test
PHILADELPHIA >> The boast was rolled out without hesitation, clear and direct, in front of cameras, ready for print. It was said and repeated and echoed. It was not an accident.
With Brett Brown leading the choir, the tune was simple: The 76ers would win the Eastern Conference regular season, roll into the playoffs as a No. 1 seed and, at last, enjoy what they had spent most of seven years striving to achieve.
They were ready for any challenge.
Bring it on.
For that, the NBA this weekend will have provided them with the perfect platform to show what they have become … and then, where they will have to go. A 22-hour period of holiday cheer began Saturday night with a visit from the Cleveland Cavaliers, who would be nicely dressed as an NBA team, only without any good players. That would result in a 141-94 victory in which the Sixers would be ahead by, yes, 41 points by halftime. It will finish with a 6 p.m. Sunday visit from Toronto, the defending world champion, the team that sent the Sixers into the last offseason with a four-bounce gamewinning shot.
Cleveland. Then Toronto. The NBA, in takehome form.
“They already beat us this year,” Ben Simmons said. “We would love to get this one. We need it.”
If that is an overstatement, it isn’t one by much. For there are the Sixers in third place in the Atlantic Division, a rather sloppy look for a team so openly assuming they would win the conference. So, yes, a victory over the Raptors would be meaningful, even this early in a season.
“To dust it off and say it is just another game, I will not say that at all,” Brown said. “It would be very disingenuous. Our recent history with them, you remember. And it’s true. They are the NBA champs. The game we lost in Toronto doesn’t go away quickly.
“They are sitting somewhere in Philadelphia in a hotel room, waiting to play us. I do think that because of the margin we were able to establish tonight, nobody played big minutes, so that won’t matter. But for sure, I know who we are playing tomorrow.”
Even with Kawhi Leonard having leaked to the Clippers in free agency, the Sixers Sunday will face nothing like they did Saturday. Against Cleveland, they shot well, passed better and defended with just enough commitment to make players of questionable major-league ability begin to doubt themselves and collapse.
It was a scheduling treat before a challenge, the last chance for a while to win with ease despite whatever concessions to injury or management of loads. Even with Joel Embiid resting a sore hip, it was a raucous office party, with Simmons wearing the funny hat, going for 34 and even swishing a three-pointer from the corner, right in front of the Cleveland bench.
But the NBA schedule is nothing if not sinister. And whether by design or by fortunate marketing coincidence, it often turns treacherous around and then on Christmas. For that, the real lights will shine Sunday night, with the Sixers percentage points behind the Raptors in the division, with both trailing the Celtics.
“I’m surprised by their success,” Brown said. “And you wonder why. You just assume that if Kawhi (Leonard) leaves, there’s going to be pain. But they have done great stuff.”
While it already is more than 25 percent over, the NBA schedule is absurdly lengthy. The Sixers haven’t even approached those weeks where Brown will begin to talk nightly about “landing the plane,” and having as many of his players sufficiently conditioned for a four-round postseason. But not only were the Sixers trailing two Atlantic Division teams early Saturday, they were fifth in the Eastern Conference.
Technically, it is too early to really matter. But after facing Toronto, the Sixers will host Northwest Divisionleading Denver Tuesday, then hit first-place Boston Thursday. And before confronting Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Bucks in one of those Christmas Day TV pageants featuring the NBA’s Beautiful People, they will face Brooklyn and Southeast Divisionleading Miami, among some lesser opponents.
So there is the risk that before the end of 2019, the Sixers will be far enough away from that No. 1 seed idea to wonder if it is even possible.
“For me to look at you and say, ‘It’s out of reach,’ I can’t do that,” Brown said. “I’m not going to do that. I don’t think that. And I am not going to think that.”
There is no reason to think like that. Not yet. The Sixers knew they wouldn’t have it easy at the start, with six of their first eight on the road, including a swirl through Portland, Phoenix, Utah and Denver.
Then again, they likely didn’t expect the conference to be as competitive as it has been around the top, with Milwaukee thriving, Toronto surviving the loss of Leonard, Boston refusing to buckle and even Miami showing some strength.
Just the same, Brown will not retreat from his stated goal. And his expectation of that No. 1 seed remains.
“For me, it has to,” he said. “Do we get into, ‘Oh, we dug ourselves too deep a hole in December?’ I’m not going to say that. It’s still early. I think we are going to be pretty good if we can play together a little bit more.”
In one sneaky holiday-season weekend, the NBA will provide the Sixers with just that opportunity.