Sixers

Injury Report Solidifies Tonight’s Sixers/Nets Game as a Total Disappointment

By Kevin Kinkead

Published: Apr 14th, 2021 · 1:50 PM EDT

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This was supposed to be a marquee matchup for first place in the Eastern Conference.

Sixers vs. Nets, season series rubber match with playoff tiebreaker ramifications.

Instead, it’s going to be a total joke, after the 1:30 p.m. injury report went live:

No Durant, Harden, Griffin, or Aldridge for the Nets tonight

— Kyle Neubeck (@KyleNeubeck) April 14, 2021

This isn’t entirely surprising. The Nets are on the second night of a road back-to-back, after playing a rescheduled game Tuesday evening in Minnesota that was originally meant to be played on Monday. It was postponed after the shooting death of Daunte Wright and ensuing unrest in the area.

Brooklyn does, however, have Kyrie available:

Some clarity from the great people in the Nets PR department: Kyrie Irving is officially available for tonight’s game against the 76ers.

— Kristian Winfield (@Krisplashed) April 14, 2021

So the Nets starting lineup might look something like Irving, Joe Harris, Jeff Green, and whomever else they wanna stick in there. They’ve still got some perimeter threat in the backcourt, but nobody to handle Joel Embiid, and with Durant and Harden out, that allows the Sixers to maximize what they want to do defensively without being spread too thin.

I know a lot of Sixers fans will look at this and think it’s a great break for the team, a positive boon. But the bottom line is that this was supposed to be a measuring stick for the team. A barometer type of game, or whatever cliche you wanna stick in there. We were going to see how the Sixers match up against their biggest threat to the Eastern Conference crown, and now we’ve been denied that because of a confluence of circumstances, some of which the NBA can do a better job in helping to avoid.

Sucks.