The Sixers Are Onto Round 2

 

            The Philadelphia 76ers make a clean sweep of the Brooklyn Nets and are onto the 2nd round to face the winner of the Atlanta Hawks vs Boston Celtics series that is currently in 3-2 in favor of Boston.

            My prediction before the series was that the 76ers would easily move onto the second round, but I did not expect them to sweep this pesky Nets team and dominate them every single game. I thought the Nets would maybe steal a game at home and at best get the series to 5 or 6 games.

            Both game 1 and 2 in Philly were totally dominated by the Sixers as they used home-court to their advantage. The games in Brooklyn were a bit closer, but down the stretch of those games you could see who the more experienced team was and the team that was built to advance was. 

            I will give the Nets credit that they were able to slow down perennial-MVP candidate Joel Embiid. The fact that the Sixers still dominated and without their biggest threat shows how big of a threat they are to the rest of the East. Still, in Game 4 Embiid didn't even play and the Sixers still were able to fend off the Nets.

            It just shows what depth means in the playoffs when you have an MVP in Embiid not doing his best, but his teammates are right behind him picking up the slack. In the three games Embiid actually played, his most points in a game was 26 in a season where he is averaging 33 points a game. 

            The bad news was that Embiid got a little banged up in game 3 and had to rest game 4 and maybe game 1 of this upcoming round. The good news is that Trae Young just pushed back the start date of this 2nd round series for the Sixers to at least next Monday, so that's plenty of time for Embiid to recover. 

            Enough talk about Embiid, the other two members of the big three in Philly, Harden and Maxey, have been contributing a lot and if the Sixers want to make a run they have to keep this up. Maxey hit so many clutch shots during the two games in Brooklyn and on a team loaded with star power, he looks like he could be the closer.

             Over a week to rest in between two series is a big advantage for this Sixers team. They've proven that they don't need Embiid to do it all and can compete with the best of the best. Will the process finally be completed this year or will it be just another eastern semi-final series loss for the Sixers?