The Sixers are the #1 seed in the Eastern Conference but won’t know who they’re playing in the one vs. eight game until later this week.

That’s because the NBA this year introduced a postseason “play-in” tournament to determine the seventh and eighth seed in each conference, and those games will start up Tuesday.

Here’s how it looks, thanks to a handy graphic that the league put together:

Tuesday night, Boston will host Washington. The winner of that game is the #7 seed and will face the Nets in the opening playoff round. Also on Tuesday, the Pacers will host the Hornets, and the loser of that game is out. The winner, however, will advance to face the loser of the Celtics/Wizards game, and then the winner of that game gets the eight seed.

Make sense? Are you following me, camera guy?

So it could hypothetically play out like this:

  1. Washington beats Boston, gets the seventh seed
  2. Indy beats Charlotte
  3. Boston then beats Indy to claim the eighth seed

What matters is that the Sixers could be going up against any of these four teams in round. They finished 11-1 combined against these squads in the regular season, and should cruise regardless, but here’s how we’d rank those opponents from most preferable to least preferable:

1. Charlotte

The Hornets finished 33-39 and lost six of seven down the stretch.

They’ve got a couple of decent perimeter players but nobody on the interior, and they’re a young squad lacking in legitimate playoff experience beyond Terry Rozier. This one could very easily go down as a Sixers sweep.

2. Boston

You really want the Sixers to play the Celtics in the playoffs?

Yeah.

Jaylen Brown is out for the season, injured. They lost five of six to finish the season and do not have anybody that can guard Joel Embiid. All the Sixers have to do is keep Jayson Tatum in check and they should roll to an easy series win. Beating a team like the Celtics, which eliminated the Sixers twice in three years, would be a nice confidence boost to kick off the postseason.

3. Indiana

The Sixers haven’t particularly played well at Bankers Life Fieldhouse over the years, and this might be an iffy matchup if Indy was at full strength.

However, T.J. Warren is done for the season, Myles Turner has been injured, and Malcolm Brogdon has a hamstring issue he’s recovering from. Caris LeVert and Domantas Sabonis have missed recent games. If we’re talking about a playoff series where the Sixers have home court and Indy isn’t close to 100%, you’d take Doc Rivers team as a heavy favorite.

4. Washington

The Wizards were total dreck to begin the year, and lost a chunk of time due to COVID issues, but had a really nice second-half run to finish 34-38.

I don’t foresee any problems for the Sixers in handling Washington over a seven game series, but if the Russell Westbrook/Bradley Beal tandem gets hot, you’re looking at them perhaps stealing a game on their home floor and making it 2-1 or 3-1. The good thing is that the Wizards are defensively very soft and if their shots aren’t falling, there isn’t much of a backup plan.

We’ll find out the Sixers’ opponent on Thursday night.