Already, 76ers have need for postseason mentality
CAMDEN, N.J. >> To Brett Brown, the NBA regular season has always been a three-act play.
The first act, typically uneven, lasts from training camp through the Christmas Day TV marathon. The next, growingly tense, stretches to the AllStar break. And the final one, the one that will begin Thursday night for the 76ers, everything that matters will be revealed.
There are no more trades to make. There are no more assets to flip. The Sixers will have to play a few games without Joel Embiid, who needs to rest a sore knee. But there will not be many casual maintenance days for star players. There is only a sprint to whatever home-court postseason advantages, team harmony or professional precision can be achieved.
“To get where we want to go,” Brown often has said, “we’re going to have to get among the royalty.” So … go. “We have to use these games, especially these next five, even without Joel, to build chemistry,” Tobias Harris said Wednesday, after practice. “We have the right pieces to make things happen. So we have to build that chemistry back.”
The Sixers have 24 games to play, fewer than a college season. As they hit the break, they had the same 37-21 record as Boston, which held the No. 4 seeding due to its 3-0 record against the Sixers. If that form were to hold, the Sixers would not even have one home playoff series. More, they would open the postseason in Boston, where they ended the last postseason.
That makes the sprint critical. It’s also has one key.
“Winnnnnn,” Jimmy Butler said, stretching the word out for emphasis. “We have 24 games. Win 24 games, or win as much as you can over those 24 games. Get a rhythm. Get everybody comfortable. Because it is all about playing your best basketball at the right time. And that’s what we want to be doing at the end of this thing.”
According to (what else?) tankathon.com, the Sixers have the NBA’s ninth softest remaining schedule, with their opponents having combined to play .485 basketball. By contrast, Boston has the sixth roughest agenda, its opponents having played at a .526 pace. Though such statistics reveal what has happened and wouldn’t account for inseason changes designed to strengthen any particular opponent, they are far from omniscient. They do hint, though, at the opportunity the Sixers face.
“Our goal is to win every single game the rest of the season,” Harris said. “We’re going into every game like they are playoff games. That being said, in the East, there are a lot of good teams up there ahead of us. But if we handle our business, we can help ourselves and move up.
“We are not worried about anybody. We’re ready to bring it.”
The Sixers were blessed with a soft late schedule last year, used it to win their final 16 regular-season games and slipstreamed by LeBron James and the Cavaliers into the No. 3 seed in the East. That yielded a home-court edge in Round 1 against Miami, with the Heat wilting in five, before that second-round test in Boston. Since Brown began yelling about playing in the NBA Finals on Day 1 of the following training camp, he would have to declare a similar fate unacceptable.
That makes the final push critical to any potential home-court advantages and realistic paths through the postseason.
“If you had your druthers, you would prefer that,” Brown said. “I think over my 19 years of doing this, you learn there is a lot to be said about just playing good basketball and being healthy. If you had your choice, you would take the home crowd all day, every day. Our players really respond to the Philadelphia atmosphere. But that’s not always it. I have learned over my years that incrementally being on an upward trend and playing good basketball and having the team’s health trumps the home court.”
Since concocting their new team around the trade deadline, the Sixers are 3-1. Given their remaining schedule and upgraded starting lineup, it would be reasonable to expect them to continue to win at a 75 percent rate. If so, they would finish with 55 wins. Last year, when the Celtics won that many, it was good for the No. 2 line on the conference bracket.
“For me, I believe this is the third team I’ve coached this year,” Brown said, just before the break. “I did not put tons of expectation or team goals or individual expectations on the group. I told them that I want to step back and see stuff unfold, and learn from them, and see how this thing plays out.
“I’ll come back from the break for the third ‘third’, the run home, and deliver a more concise plan, expectations-type stuff, things that I can do to help them. And so for me personally to go through four games with the new guys, I feel better about coming back from a plan that I think is more realistic and appropriate for where we want to end up.”
The Sixers ended the first act, the one largely involving Dario Saric and Robert Covington, with 22 wins and playing .628 basketball. In the second, much of it including Butler, they won 15 times, playing at a .652 pace. The third act remains. It will tell all.