![]() After all, Toronto lost Kawhi Leonard and did not replace him, and they’ve spent most of the season looking like a championship contender. ![]() But if Embiid really is the best big man in the game, as both he and his coach have suggested, and if Harris really was worth the price that the Sixers paid for him, in both assets and dollars, then there should be no reason to write them out of this postseason. ![]() If that sounds silly, let’s not forget what this team was supposed to be. In that context, a game against the Raptors at least offered them a chance to inspire some belief, both for their fans and for themselves. Once Simmons went down, it seemed difficult to concoct a scenario in which they’d reach the bar they’d set for themselves at the start of the season. With the exception of a few dominant flashes from Embiid, the Sixers looked a lot like the team we saw before the COVID-19 shutdown: uninspired and adrift, with an inexplicably porous defense. Things did not go according to plan during their first six games inside the bubble, from a bad loss against an undermanned Pacers team to the season-ending knee injury suffered by Simmons. It was, however, an opportunity, both for the Sixers and for those of us following their Disney adventure on TV. Anunoby did not suit up, and neither did their coach, as Nick Nurse decided to let assistant Adrian Griffin take the wheel for a night. 6 seed (the clincher was a Pacers win on Wednesday). For the Raptors, a first-round date against the Nets has been a formality for a while now, while the Sixers learned shortly before tip-off that they would be squaring off against the Celtics as the East’s No. Sure, this was a meaningless game as far as the standings were concerned. When you get into the playoffs, it’s inevitable that it’s a similar type of pressure, that type of harassing team defense that Toronto is. “I thought did a great job of doing that. play downhill as best as we could,” Sixers coach Brett Brown said. But the Sixers would walk out with a much-needed jolt of momentum. By the end of the night, the starters would be on the bench, and the Raptors would leave the court with a 125-121 win. Ben Simmons was injured, Joel Embiid was a nonfactor, and the Sixers were leading the Eastern Conference’s No. This was the first quarter of the penultimate game before the start of what most people assume will be their only playoff series. There was Josh Richardson, speeding around the court like a video-game animation with the turbo button jammed, attacking off the dribble, looking to shoot, flicking his arm into a passing lane on a Raptors fastbreak. There was Tobias Harris, squaring up in the corner before going baseline for a layup, power dribbling into the lane and jump-stopping for a floater, coasting down the right side of the lane and using his length to drop a layup off the glass.
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