For as bad as last Friday’s game was in Cleveland, the Sixers probably deserve a mulligan. At 9-2 after Sunday’s win in Chicago, Philly has not only looked the part of a championship contender, but they’ve done it against lots of fellow contenders, Sunday notwithstanding. The schedule is about to lighten up for the Sixers, but they still have two more games this week against playoff teams from last season. They’ll host Boston on Tuesday and Toronto on Thursday.
If the Sixers can get to 11-2, they’ll
be set up to face a slew of sub-.500 teams for the rest of November. They’ve already got the attention of the entire NBA world given that they’ve lived up to the preseason hype thus far. Think about what the narrative could be in 3-4 week’s time surrounding this team. The wins should continue to be piled up, and they would have already beaten all the top challengers in the Eastern Conference once already and it wouldn’t even be Christmas yet.
Oddly enough, the Sixers have not had home-court advantage in a playoff series since the 2023 first round when they swept Brooklyn. That means it hasn’t happened in three previous seasons under Nick Nurse. As they continue to stockpile victories early in the season, the reality of a deep playoff run becomes increasingly plausible. In two postseasons under Nurse, the Sixers have had grueling first-round matchups, losing a tight series to New York in 2024 and having to rally from 3-1 down to eliminate Boston in 2026. The drain of having to dig out of the 3-1 hole against Boston clearly showed itself in the second round last spring when the Sixers got whitewashed by the Knicks in a quick four-game sweep.
In 2023, Philly was ahead 3-2 after five games against Boston and on the precipice of making the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time since 2001. We all know how the series ended, but the point remains that getting through an easy first-round series would do wonders for getting Joel Embiid — and LeBron James at his advanced age, for that matter — through an entire four rounds of the postseason.
As the Sixers continue to stack victories early in the 2026-27 season, they’ll continue to make the path to an NBA Championship easier for themselves. Not only have they been stacking victories but finishing off such a challenging first three weeks of the season with two more wins this week against Boston and Toronto would only be the icing on a cake that’s already baking pretty good. In addition to making their postseason path easier, Philly could be as selective as possible in determining when to load manage Embiid and James.
The NBA regular season has often come with a label of irrelevance thanks in part to the load managing we see around the league with superstars and their playing time. While it feels like the Sixers have washed away a lot of the negative labels surrounding their ability to make a deep playoff run, there probably is a segment of the fanbase that is still very much in “Wake me up in April” mode and, to some extent, that’s an understandable sentiment to feel.
But the Sixers are doing all they can possibly do now to make fans believe that this could be the year they play into June. They’re beating every contender in front of them. Remember, despite Friday’s drubbing in Cleveland, they came back from a 29-point deficit to beat the Cavaliers earlier in the season. Simply put, it’s a great time to be a Sixers fan, even if it’s only November.
