March 29, 2025
As the 2024-25 season winds down for the Sixers, they played host to the Miami Heat on Saturday night. Miami, the No. 10 seed in the Eastern Conference, had a chance to officially eliminate the Sixers from playoff contention with a victory.
Miami did just that, handing the Sixers yet another defeat, 118-95. For the first time since 2016-17, the Sixers will not appear in the NBA Playoffs. Here is what stood out from Saturday’s action:
For an extended period, Sixers head coach Nick Nurse has opted to start one of Jared Butler and Jeff Dowtin Jr. in the backcourt alongside Quentin Grimes, with Ricky Council IV and Justin Edwards on the wing and Guerschon Yabusele manning the middle. Nurse has very few other options, but he has relied on this unit despite suboptimal size at three positions.
The logical change was the one Nurse ended up making against Miami: removing Council, who has struggled mightily all season with especially poor shooting numbers of late, and replacing him with rookie center Adem Bona. It slides Yabusele down to power forward, and suddenly the Sixers go from being severely undersized to being well-equipped to match most teams’ physicality.
Miami’s massive frontcourt of Bam Adebayo and Kel’el Ware certainly played a part in the decision. But the fact of the matter is that finding additional opportunities for Bona to play should be a much bigger priority between now and the end of the regular season than playing Council. The second-year wing cannot be discarded as a long-term prospect, but at this juncture it feels significantly more realistic that Bona works his way into this team’s future. Even beyond Council’s disappointing season and Bona’s obvious upward trajectory, the No. 41 overall pick in last year’s NBA Draft is very clearly developing with every appearance.
Bona’s tools are outstanding and his motor is even better; the next step is learning how to properly harness all of that against NBA competition. With a strong few weeks leading into the end of the season, Bona could suddenly appear on the verge of becoming a viable rotation piece on a nightly basis in 2025-26. The path to Council achieving the same is much more difficult to envision.
Walker had a rough break earlier this month when an impressive stretch of performances was halted by a concussion. Walker’s head slammed on the floor 20 seconds after he checked into the team’s March 12 loss to the Toronto Raptors. He missed five games in a row before returning on March 21, but at halftime of the Sixers’ loss to the San Antonio Spurs he was ruled out for the remainder of the game due to a headache. Walker missed the next three games, first being listed with “concussion” before the designation changed to “neck sprain.” However, he was initially listed as probable to play against Miami and was eventually upgraded to available. Walker has a lot to gain in the last nine contests of the season, looking to convince the Sixers that his team option projected to be worth just under $3 million will be worth picking up.
Speaking to the media after the Sixers’ practice on Friday morning, Walker said he was being held out of those games out of an abundance of caution.
“This was my first concussion,” Walker said. “…I felt fine, I felt good, going into the game. But it was my first time actually being around the lights, the noises, the stimulation.. I felt a small, little headache, things of that nature, and we decided that it was best to just kind of figure it out and go from there.”
Walker had a difficult four-game stretch to begin his Sixers tenure, but eventually found his footing as a high-volume three-point shooter and began contributing as a rebounder and occasional defensive playmaker.
Some more notes and takeaways from this one:
• Butler started at point guard with Dowtin out, and the 24-year-old knocked down a pair of early triples. Butler and Nurse have both spoken about their desire for teams to treat Butler as more of a threat from beyond the arc, and to his credit, he is taking a lot of shots he might have passed up earlier in his career.
• Speaking of Dowtin, he only has two NBA days left on his two-way contract, so he was inactive for this one. Alex Reese was inactive as well; he can appear in five of the Sixers’ last nine games. Jalen Hood-Schifino returned to action after missing some time with an illness. He can appear in six more games for the Sixers.
• Quentin Grimes scored 11 points in a strong first quarter, but that is not what Nurse says he needs to see at this juncture. Grimes has proven to be a dynamic three-level scorer under extremely difficult circumstances. Nobody saw that coming, and Nurse wants to see if there is another unexpected development to come.
“Can he play some point guard? “I’d like to start him at the point,” Nurse said. “…Even if he doesn’t start, I’m just curious. He’s not a point guard, but can he be a serviceable backup in the NBA as a point guard?”
Grimes has had a few spot starts at point guard this season and a handful of games in which he took on some primary ball-handling duties, including Saturday’s game. The results have predictably been mixed, but more encouraging than most would have guessed.
Up next: The Sixers will complete this home back-to-back with the most important game left on their regular season schedule, hosting the Toronto Raptors on Sunday evening in a critical tanking matchup.
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