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The Philadelphia 76ers have just three games left in their regular season campaign. It doesn’t sound like much, but there is still a lot to be decided in this final week for the Sixers, and for a few other teams in the Eastern Conference.
There are still battles to be fought in the
East, even if the top seed was already claimed by Detroit Pistons this past weekend. There are still a handful of teams, including the Sixers, that can technically finish anywhere from the No. 5 seed down to No. 10.
As of Wednesday morning, the Sixers are currently the No. 7 seed in the East, a Play-In Tournament position. The squad had been in the No. 6 spot, a guaranteed playoff spot, just 48 hours ago, but dropped as a result of their Monday night loss to the San Antonio Spurs. They then fell another half game behind with the Toronto Raptors’ win on Tuesday. As it stands today, Philadelphia sits one game behind Toronto for the six seed.
The Sixers are as healthy as they could probably ask for at this point — well, it’s the healthiest they’ve been at the end of a regular season in quite some time, at least — but it certainly hasn’t guaranteed wins every night of this last stretch. Even with Joel Embiid, Paul George, Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe all available, it’s far from flawless basketball.
But the show ain’t over yet, and it ain’t all up to the Sixers.
The only thing currently separating the 43-36 Sixers and Magic is a tiebreaker, with Philadelphia winning the season series 2-1. That means that the Sixers, off on Wednesday night, could fall back to No. 8 if the Orlando Magic win their game against the Minnesota Timberwolves.
If the Magic were to lose, Orlando would fall back to No. 9, with the Charlotte Hornets taking the No. 8 spot by way of having the head-to-head tiebreaker over the Magic. Both would be half a game behind the Sixers at 43-37 if that were to happen. The Sixers hold tiebreakers over both.
As one can see, there are a lot of moving parts here each night here in the final week of the regular season. Philadelphia has just three of their own games left — against the Houston Rockets, Indiana Pacers and Milwaukee Bucks — so they could still move back up, but they don’t completely control their own destiny even if they do win out. Right now, they’re teetering the line between playoffs and Play-In.
With all that being said and considering the plethora of variables even with just a few days left: do you think the Sixers can move back into guaranteed playoff position (top six seeds), or will they have to fight their way through the Play-In Tournament (7-10 seeds)?
Let us know!
