April 12, 2024
Jeremy Reper/USA TODAY Sports
The Sixers host what is perhaps their most important game of the regular season Friday night against the Orlando Magic.
Just three days remain in the 2023-24 NBA regular season, and for each team, only two out of 82 games are left on the schedule. But even after 80 games each, how the playoff bracket and Play-In Tournament will look remains almost entirely a mystery.
In the Eastern Conference, the only certainties are that the 62-win Boston Celtics will boast home-court advantage against any opponent as the No. 1 seed and that the Chicago Bulls and Atlanta Hawks will be the No. 9 and No. 10 seed, respectively. But between No. 2 and No. 8, chaos is beginning to ensue.
Here are the Eastern Conference standings heading into Friday night's action:
| (Seed) Team | Record | GB |
| (2) Milwaukee Bucks | 49-31 | 13 |
| (3) New York Knicks | 48-32 | 14 |
| (4) Cleveland Cavaliers | 47-33 | 15 |
| (5) Orlando Magic | 46-34 | 16 |
| (6) Indiana Pacers | 46-34 | 16 |
| (7) Philadelphia 76ers | 45-35 | 17 |
| (8) Miami Heat | 44-36 | 18 |
• Sixers tied with Cleveland: Sixers win tiebreaker
• Sixers tied with Orlando: Sixers win tiebreaker
• Sixers tied with Indiana: Pacers win tiebreaker
• Sixers tied with Miami: Heat win tiebreaker
However, things get tricky if more than two teams finish with the same record. The top tiebreaker in that case is which teams involved have won their division. The Sixers, of course, will not finish first in the Atlantic Division, and neither will the Pacers. But there is a scenario in which the Sixers, Pacers and Magic finish in a three-way tie at 47-35 (the Sixers would need to win both of their last two games -- one of which comes at home against Orlando on Friday night -- while the Pacers and Magic would each need to split their final two). In that scenario, the Magic would get priority in seeding because they would finish the season leading the Southeast Division, then the Pacers would finish next, and the Sixers last of the three.
If the Sixers can take care of business against the Magic, who have lost six of their last 10 games, this three-way tie scenario is by far the most realistic one in which they fall out of the Eastern Conference's top six. This is crucial because, starting with last season's inaugural Play-In Tournament, only the top six seeds in each conference are actually guaranteed playoff spots. The seventh through 10th seed take part in the Play-In Tournament, in which one or two losses -- depending on which seed a team enters as -- can end its season without even participating in a traditional seven-game playoff series.
These are the remaining two contests for each team within a two-game radius of the Sixers in the Eastern Conference standings as well as the Sixers themselves:
• Cleveland Cavaliers: vs. Indiana, vs. Charlotte
• Orlando Magic: @ Philadelphia, vs. Milwaukee
• Indiana Pacers: @ Cleveland, vs. Atlanta
• Philadelphia 76ers: vs. Orlando, vs. Brooklyn
• Miami Heat: vs. Toronto, vs. Toronto
Even in the NBA in the first two weeks of April, no win is guaranteed, but things are lining up for Miami to sweep their two-game home set against the 25-55 Raptors. Each of the other four teams have one game against their seeding competition -- in addition to the Magic-Sixers game, the Cavaliers host the Pacers on Friday night in a pivotal matchup.
The Sixers, Cavaliers and Pacers all will be heavily-favored in their final games. The Sixers host the eliminated Brooklyn Nets, the Cavaliers host the eliminated Charlotte Hornets, and the Pacers host an Atlanta team that is already locked into the Eastern Conference's No. 10 seed and will not have any tangible incentive to win.
The Magic, meanwhile, host the Milwaukee Bucks in their final matchup. The Bucks have struggled in recent weeks and will be without superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo for at least the remainder of the regular season, but they still have a lot of talent and could very well be playing to clinch a berth of the Eastern Conference's No. 2 seed.
If the Sixers take care of business and win their two remaining games, they can do no worse than finishing as the No. 7 seed -- in which case they would likely host the Miami Heat in the first game of the Play-In Tournament. The winner of that game would go on to face whoever nabs the No. 2 seed in a seven-game series (while the loser would face the winner of the Bulls-Hawks matchup in a game where the victor heads to Boston and the loser heads home).
But if they win their final two games, there is a very real chance that they avoid the Play-In Tournament entirely, which would of course be a major boon. Technically, the Sixers could leap as high as to the No. 4 seed in the Eastern Conference if everything broke their way, but there is an extremely slim chance of that happening. The No. 6 seed is their most likely landing spot if they do move up, with there being an outside chance of them climbing to the No. 5 seed.
However, the No. 6 seed is a better place to be than No. 5, as they would avoid the mighty Celtics until the Eastern Conference Finals if they were to advance that far, whereas they would have to face Boston in the second round if they won their first playoff series as the No. 5 seed. Some would argue that this doesn't matter -- if a team other than the Celtics wins the conference, they would very likely have to go through Boston at some point regardless. But as we have seen in recent years -- the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks' stunning first round exit against the No. 8 seed and eventual Eastern Conference Champion Miami Heat in last year's playoffs, for example -- anything can happen in today's day and age.
In just 72 hours or so, the Sixers' seed will be known, and their first playoff opponent will be as well. But the team must focus solely on the tasks at hand: notching a significant win against the Magic, and then handling the lowly Nets. If they can accomplish those goals, they will have put themselves in position to be rewarded for their efforts and what would be a season-ending eight-game winning streak by the basketball gods.
