It’s always the Sixers that have got to make things weird.
Now that the 2025-26 regular season has concluded and the seeding is finalized, the league has announced dates, times, and TV schedules for the Play-In tournament and the first weekend of the first round of the playoffs.
Normally both 7-vs.-8 are the first games of the Play-In, taking place on the Tuesday the tournament starts. Since that’s the day of the Flyers final game of the regular season and the Sixers have snatched the seventh seed
from the Magic, they’ll be hosting Orlando on Wednesday the 15th at 7:30 p.m. ET.
If they lose to the Magic, they’ll host the winner of Hornets/Magic on the 17th, also at 7:30. All Play-In games this year will be on Amazon Prime.
Regardless of how the Sixers get out of the Play-In, if they do so they’ll begin round 1 on Sunday the 19th. If they beat Orlando, they’ll secure the seventh seed and have the rest of the week off before taking on the Boston Celtics at 1:00 p.m. ET.
Should they fall back to the eight seed they’ll head to Detroit to play the Pistons at 6:30. If it’s Boston, that series will start on ABC as opposed to NBC and Peacock if they get matched up with Detroit.
It doesn’t seem like anyone is optimistic about the Sixers’ chances against either team with Joel Embiid on the shelf for most of if not the entirety of round 1. The best possible advantage for this team might be four extra days of rest and after seeing that Magic performance in Boston, it certainly is possible.
