I heard a guy on 94 WIP this morning say the Sixers would beat the Rockets in the finals.

While the excitement is commendable, the rationality is questionable, which can (shockingly) be the case with sports radio callers.

That’s not to say I don’t think the Sixers can make a playoff run. We’re talking about a 50-win team that just won 14 in a row, six without Joel Embiid and a few more without Embiid AND Dario Saric. That’s one side of the coin, the fact that Philadelphia just happens to be the hottest team in basketball, a team that has artfully dismantled the dregs of the association.

The other side of the coin is caution. This isn’t me poo-pooing the Sixers’ form, it’s just a plea for discretion. This team knocked off 11 non-playoff squads during the unbeaten run, and the 3 playoff teams* dispatched all came to the Wells Fargo Center to “take the L,” as the Millennials would say. They did, however, boat-race Denver and Minnesota before showing a lot of mettle in the Cleveland win.

*(let’s count the Nuggets as a playoff team, or, more accurately, a team that still has something to play for)

That’s really the premise here; I think fans should be totally amped for Sixers playoff basketball, but just try to keep your feet on the ground. We’re talking about the same Philly team that didn’t win a single road game against the Heat, Bucks, Wizards, or Pacers this year, finishing 0-7 overall.

These are the Sixers’ road wins against Eastern Conference playoff teams:

  • at Boston (January 18th)
  • at Cleveland (March 1st)

That’s it. They beat the Cavs in Cleveland and beat Boston in Boston without Kyrie Irving.

Otherwise, they dropped four road games to those two squads, plus Toronto, giving us an overall road record of 2-11 vs. Eastern Conference playoff teams.

That’s why home court ended up being so important. You didn’t want a game seven in Indy, Miami, Washington, or Milwaukee, and now you don’t have to experience that. Plus, if one of those teams knocks off the short-handed Celtics, the Sixers take that advantage into the second round.

With all of that in mind, now that we’ve re-calibrated like the level-headed Philadelphia sports people that we are, let’s take a look at possible first-round playoff opponents:

Washington Wizards

  • record: 42-38
  • home: 22-18
  • away:  20-20
  • last 15: 5 wins, 10 losses
  • vs. Sixers: 2 wins, 2 losses
  • remaining schedule: vs. Celtics, at Magic

They’re in poor form, just five wins out of their last fifteen games and currently occupying the #8 spot.

They blew a 17-point 4th quarter lead in Cleveland, then suffered a brutal home loss to Atlanta with John Wall resting on the second night of a back-to-back. Markieff Morris was ejected in the first quarter and Marcin Gortat was asked to play a season-high 39 minutes, contributing just 6 points and 11 rebounds.

Washington sports fans are predictably dooming and glooming over what looks like another disappointing postseason outlook. The Nationals, Redskins, and Capitals haven’t exactly been lighting the playoff world on fire in recent years (and D.C. United is awful). It seems like the Wiz are ripe for the picking as they try to right the ship with Wall now back in the fold after missing a ton of games with the knee injury.

They are, however 2-2 against the Sixers this season, winning twice at home and losing twice on the road. I don’t put much stock in the season opener, a five-point loss that took place way back in October. The second game in Washington featured poor shooting nights from JJ Redick (2-10) and Marco Belinelli (3-10), and the Wizards went 54.4% from the field and 12-25 from the three point line in a 15-point win.

Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid both played well above their season averages in the four games against Washington, so even if you don’t get Jo back until game three at the latest, I still think you’re probably in good shape heading down I-95. Ben went for 20 and 11 on average in the regular season series, a number bloated a bit by the 31-points he put up in the November “hack-a-Simmons” game:

Prediction: Sixers over Washington in six

Milwaukee Bucks

  • record: 43-37
  • home: 24-16
  • away: 19-21
  • last 15: 9 wins, 6 losses
  • vs. Sixers: 2 wins, 1 loss
  • remaining schedule: vs. Magic, at Sixers

The Bucks are in a dead heat with… the Heat …for sixth place.

I’m intrigued to see how the season finale plays out. Do they really want the 7th seed and a first round matchup with Boston instead? Would they toss Wednesday’s game to position themselves more favorably?

I have no clue.

What I do know is that Giannis is a problem. He didn’t play in the January trip to Philly, a 116-94 Sixers win. But he played in both of the games in Milwaukee, leading all scorers and rebounders with 31 and 18 and 35 and 9, respectively. The Sixers blew the most recent trip to Wisconsin, a game that nobody really needs to relive.

When you look through his splits, Giannis has played two of his best games this season against Philly, performing much better than his 27 and 10 season averages. I don’t know how much that changes at the Wells Fargo Center, but a seven games series mighty get a little hairy with this team.

Jabari Parker is an interesting wrinkle, too. He only played in one game against the Sixers this year, putting up 13 points and 7 rebounds. He averaged 11 and 4 in March and is now up to 19 and 9 in four April games.

I don’t know if anyone else on the Bucks really scares you. Eric Bledsoe? Khris Middleton? They’ve got some nice pieces, but we’re talking about a 43-37 team that found a way to lose at home to Brooklyn last week. Worst case scenario is that you’d split the first four games of a Milwaukee series, then ride home court advantage to the second round.

Prediction: Sixers over Milwaukee in seven

Miami Heat

  • record: 43-37
  • home: 25-14
  • away:  18-23
  • last 15: 9 wins, 6 losses
  • vs. Sixers: 2 wins, 2 losses
  • remaining schedule: vs. Thunder, vs. Raptors

Similar to the Bucks in a lot of ways, they’re a good home team, sub-500 road team, and won both home games against the Sixers.

The first three games in this series were really close – 6 points, 2 points, and 1 point, that last game decided by a Dwyane Wade dagger with 5.9 seconds on the clock. You remember that one, yea? D Wade turning back the clock to score 15 of Miami’s final 17 points? Yep.

Not sure why, but it always feels like a couple of players have bad shooting nights against Miami. There was one game where Robert Covington went 0-10 from the field and Embiid finished 2-12 inside the three point line. That was the nine-point loss in March.

In the Wade dagger game, Redick and Covington finished 6-24. And if you want to go back to the 104-102 Philly win a few games before that one, the Embiid-less Sixers only shot 42% overall and needed a huge defensive effort to erase a 23-point halftime deficit. Even in the very first contest, Miami ripped off a 37 to 17 4th quarter in one of those vintage, blown lead 2017 games.

So they’re very close to being 1-3 vs. the Heat this year. Each of those games has been semi-harrowing for various reasons, but the good thing is that it feels like a lot of it was self-inflicted. Yea, Wade might go off every once in awhile, but I don’t think anyone looks at Goran Dragic or Hassan Whiteside and says, “yea, that’s a problem.”

Prediction: Sixers over Miami in seven

Indiana Pacers

  • record: 48-33
  • home: 27-13
  • away: 21-20
  • last 15: 10 wins, 5 losses
  • vs. Sixers: 2 wins, 1 loss
  • remaining schedule: vs. Hornets

The only way the Sixers get the Pacers in round one is if they slip up in Atlanta or against Milwaukee and allow the Cavs to reclaim the #3 seed. Cleveland finishes with a home and home against the Knicks, so I don’t think they’re taking another loss in the regular season.

I don’t like a first round matchup with Indy. They’re 10-5 in their last fifteen games and they are the last team to beat the Sixers (plus the only team to win at the Wells Fargo Center in 2018).

The Pacers kind of remind me of a Doug Collins-coached Sixers team. They don’t wow you with amazing talent necessarily, but they play a steady brand of basketball and they don’t turn the ball over or commit a lot of fouls. They hit some mid-range junk at a higher percentage than other teams, stuff like this from their most recent win over Charlotte:

Indy doesn’t shoot a ton of three pointers at all, just a lot of two-point stuff to go along with the league’s 12th-best defensive rating. They also smashed the Warriors by 20 points the other night. They actually finished 7-1 against the Warriors, Cavaliers, and Spurs this year.

Prediction: Sixers over Indy in seven

The verdict:

  1. Washington
  2. Milwaukee
  3. Miami
  4. Indy

That’s how I’d do it, in order of most preferable to least preferable. You could probably interchange Miami and Milwaukee, because I don’t see a ton really separating either team right now. The Sixers would have tricky road games in both of those series.

I think Washington is out of form, the travel to D.C. is easy, and they’re only 22-18 at home this year. They seem to be carrying a bunch of question marks into the postseason, specifically with the John Wall situation and the undeniable lack of confidence that D.C. sports fans have in their teams right now. I don’t think there’s any kind of edge or any kind of advantage that sticks out for the Wizards right now. I don’t foresee the Capital One Arena being the venue of playoff nightmares for the opposition.

Yeah, they’re still a good team, but that’s who I’d be aiming for if I was Brett Brown and Bryan Colangelo. I think the Sixers beat the Wizards in six, but I could easily see a series with the other three teams going to game seven, depending, of course, on the health of Joel Embiid.