April 19, 2024
Brad Penner/USA Today
Nico Batum did it all for the Sixers against the Heat. Can he continue to thrive in the Knicks series?
After an instant classic Play-In Tournament win over the Heat, the Sixers are facing a best-of-seven series with a 50-win Knicks team that can pack a punch (and a second, and a third...). This will be a hell of battle. To tide you all over until Saturday evening, here are five Sixers thoughts that are dancing around my brain...
Being in the arena on Thursday, the "Bricken for Chicken" promotion undoubtedly made an impact on the crowd's atmosphere. The offense was lifeless, as was Joel Embiid. It's no secret that this team feeds off the energy of Sixers fans, for better or for worse.
The Heat held an 11-point lead in the third quarter during this slopfest. Miami's Caleb Martin missed his first free throw and Sixers fans began to wake up, making legitimate noise for the first time since player introductions. Perhaps the Philadelphia faithful got to him because Martin missed the second free throw so badly that I wondered if he was throwing fans a bone with free Chick-fil-A chicken nuggets in what assuredly felt like a Heat victory.
I always thought McDonald's and even Wendy's had better nuggets than Chick-fil-A, but the ones Sixers fans ate on Thursday were probably the best they've ever had.
Hot take: If Nico Batum averages 20 points per game off the bench the entire postseason, the Sixers are going to win the title. Batum nailing six threes with ease will likely end up a playoff outlier, but his impact will continue to be felt as far as the Sixers go.
Batum is the Sixers' most versatile defender in his ability to guard the perimeter and bang down low against fours and even fives at times. He's a career 36.6 percent three-point shooter. He should have the green light to fire them up with that high release whenever Embiid feeds him out of a double team.
The optics are too distracting if head coach Nick Nurse were to bench Tobias Harris in the starting lineup for Batum. Harris' contract looms large and it would just be a dagger for a player who's already struggling immensely. Who closes the game in the NBA, however, matters more than who starts it and the fact that Batum was out there at the end of the Play-In game against Miami speaks volumes about the team's trust in him over Harris.
Harris played 33 minutes on Wednesday. Batum played 28. Batum has been banged up this season and how sustainable playing 30 minutes per night will be remains to be seen, but there's no question he's the best option at the four next to Embiid currently.
The Knicks are Villanova North at this point, starting Wildcat national champions Jalen Brunson, a will-be All-NBA selection, the gritty Josh Hart and the sharp-shooting Donte DiVincenzo. Philadelphians always want their teams to draft local products and that frequently means overvaluing "their guys," but in the case of these three, the Sixers made massive mistakes.
In one of the most bizarre draft moves the Sixers ever made, they selected Anžejs Pasečņiks with the 25th pick in 2017. Hart went five picks later. In the 2018 NBA Draft, the Sixers ended up with Zhaire Smith, who was the 16th-overall selection. DiVincenzo went 17th. With the 26th pick that year, the Sixers drafted Landry Shamet. Brunson went 33rd.
Take the butterfly effect into consideration, of course, but in this era, the Sixers have whiffed on adding key, young role players next to their stars. They've improved on the veteran front this year with additions like Batum and Kyle Lowry, but any of those three dudes would look spectacular in a Sixers uniform.
Lowry will be the top choice to guard Brunson right away, amongst many players Nurse will throw at the All-Star, but Brunson going off at the Wells Fargo Center where he played for Villanova at times feels like a lock. He averaged nearly 29 points per game this year. This is going to be a hard-fought series that I think goes the distance, so one game where Brunson drops 40 in a crushing South Philly loss for the Sixers may be on the table.
One aspect that should give Sixers fans pause this series is rebounding. New York was second in rebounds per 100 possessions this season and they had the top offensive rebounding rate, too. Even with Embiid's presence, an obvious size mismatch for the Knicks, the Sixers are just far from a physical team. These Knicks have some of those fierce, old-school New York vibes to them, a cross between Charles Oakley and "The Warriors."
Seeing Hart crash the offensive boards for all-hustle put-back baskets is going to infuriate Philadelphians for the next week or two.
I took a trip up to the Barclays Center last spring for the Sixers' first-round matchup with the Nets. The gorgeous arena was brimming with Sixers fans who hopped on Amtrak to watch their squad pull off a sweep in Brooklyn. The takeover was so strong that "E-A-G-L-E-S" chants permeated throughout the concourse after the 96-88 Game 4 win.
What caused that to happen is that the Nets do not have a strong fan base, allowing Sixers fans to pick up cheap tickets. That will certainly not be the case when it comes to the Knicks at Madison Square Garden. You're going to see Ethan Hawke and Greta Gerwig at the game in Manhattan, not a group of dudes from 16th and Shunk.
Being straight up, I could honestly see the Knicks having a big fan contingent in Philly. On Wednesday, there were a good amount of Heat fans at the Wells Fargo Center. Yes, they've been a big-time bandwagon team since the "Heatles" era, but that could spell trouble when it comes to New York transplants or fans making the trip down to the superior city that is Philly.
One of my best college friends, a Long Island native and a hardcore Knicks fan, texted me immediately after the Sixers' victory over the Heat and said, "We're so f-----g good. This might be a sweep." This is the level of delusion that Sixers fans will encounter in South Philly.
Anyway... Sixers in seven.
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