Things are looking up for Sixer fans.

A new-look squad featuring Tobias Harris just rolled the Lakers by 23 points on national television. And 36 hours prior, they were coming off a much better win against a much better Nuggets team

All of that goodwill goes right out the window if they fail to beat Boston tonight.

You know it, I know it, and everybody knows it. The Celtics are very publicly struggling, and if the Sixers don’t dice them up at home, then all of the same negativity we experienced on Christmas Day, opening night, and last May comes flying out of Pandora’s Box to re-infest the Delaware Valley. Sports radio will be filled with avarice, greed, and calls for Brett Brown’s job. Twitter will become even more insufferable than it already is. The maudlin Celtics would be given life, that spark they need to right the ship and figure this thing out and maybe even jump the Sixers for 4th place in the Eastern Conference.

I can feel it with a very tangible thickness, like the metaphorical tension that you cut with a knife, but Brett Brown didn’t seem to be too concerned on Monday afternoon when he spoke to reporters in Camden.

He was asked if falling short tonight would be a disappointment given that the Sixers are 7-4 now 11 games into the incredibly difficult 12 game stretch that included matchups with Golden State, Toronto, and Oklahoma City:

Not in my eyes. I would be lying if (I say) it doesn’t take upon a different meaning when you play the Celtics. But in relation to it sort of making or breaking this period of time that I think we’ve been playing good basketball, no.

As I said at the start, before this 11 or 12 game stretch started, I was excited because I really felt we’d learn the truth about our team, and then all of a sudden trades happen. I feel like this is the third team that I’ve coached this season and I feel even stronger that playing against Boston we’re gonna learn a lot. (They’re a) talented team, well-coached team, probably going where we want to go unless you go through them. For those reasons I’m excited, but it is not a defining moment for us on February-whatever-day it makes it, depending on the result.

I get it, but I think I disagree. It’s a monstrously huge game. It’s borderline monolithic. Brett knows it and is being pseudo-coy. He’s not gonna come out and say, “yeah, we really need this one.”

But I also feel like this is another no-win situation for the Sixers, another asterisk game because of Kyrie Irving’s absence (and also Aron Baynes, who always plays well against Philly). If the Sixers win, they were supposed to win. If they lose, it’s a bad loss on their home floor to a division rival playing without its All Star point guard.

We do, of course, know how Boston can play without Kyrie. They didn’t need him last year to take out the Sixers 4-1 in the second round of the playoffs.

Irving leads the Celtics with 23 points per game, but beyond him, Brad Stevens still has five guys averaging double figures each night out:

Add in the fact that Kyrie’s absence brings a better defensive player in Terry Rozier into the starting lineup, and you’re looking at another tricky 5v5 to begin the game. I’m intrigued to see what Brett does specifically with Tobias Harris and also how Brad Stevens sets his matchups tonight.

The source of the Boston discord is a pair of bad home losses to the Lakers and Clippers, the latter in which former Sixer Landry Shamet poured in 17 points in a 28-point comeback. Boston fans booed the Celtics off their own court on Saturday night.

After the game, Marcus Morris had this to say about his team, which quickly made it through the NBA Twitter world:

To the Celtics’ credit, nobody really disagreed with him. There wasn’t much push back, not after a couple of horrendous home floor losses. Sometimes these things galvanize teams and get them back on track, and sometimes they don’t, but with Kyrie injured and unavailable, it’s hard to predict what happens next.

But don’t downplay the significance of this game. The Sixers are 2-9 in their last 11 games against the Celtics. They didn’t look great on opening night, but Christmas was another story, a game they could have won had Irving not hit that tough floater to send it to overtime. Even then, JJ Redick did get a look at the buzzer and couldn’t convert, so it wasn’t like the Sixers were run off the court. They played a pretty good game up there on national television.

You can’t afford 2-10, though. You can’t give the Celtics life. They’re down right now, they’re talking about being selfish and not playing as a team while blowing 20-point leads. You have to put your foot down and run these guys off the court, because it furthers their misery while simultaneously building your Eastern Conference resume and  getting the Boston monkey off your back, finally.