76ers being last unbeaten team in Eastern Conference is a big deal

The Philadelphia 76ers defeated the Atlanta Hawks 105-103 on Monday to improve to 3-0, and emerge as the last unbeaten team in the Eastern Conference.

Heading into Monday, the Philadelphia 76ers knew they would be in for a difficult matchup against an Atlanta Hawks team that was previously 2-0 as well.

Despite how things played out last season, the Hawks appeared to be a team with a ton of young talent led by Trae Young that seemed ready to make the leap to become an actual contender in the Eastern Conference this year.

The season is still young, and Atlanta has plenty to prove over the next few months, but the team certainly has plenty of reasons to be thrilled over how their first week went for the most part, that is until Monday’s game took place.

After jumping out to a hot start by holding a 40-31 lead at the end of the first quarter, the Hawks appeared to be heading towards a third win of the season while making another strong statement in the process by taking down a legitimate contender in the Sixers.

Instead, Philadelphia would eventually fight their way back into the contest before hanging on for the 105-103 win in a game that came down to the final seconds.

Just like that, the Sixers went from looking like a team heading towards their first loss of the 2019-20 season to finding a way to take down the Hawks to keep their undefeated streak alive until their Wednesday meeting with the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Normally, a 3-0 start shouldn’t be considered that big of a deal since Philadelphia still has 79 games to go before the playoffs get underway.

But by defeating the Hawks, the Sixers are now the lone undefeated team remaining in the Eastern Conference, which deserves plenty of recognition when looking at all of the hype surrounding the team from the offseason.

In the previous two seasons, Philadelphia earned the respect of being one of the top contenders in the Eastern Conference, but most basketball fans believed they weren’t on the same level as other teams such as the Milwaukee Bucks or Boston Celtics.

However, things seemed to be a bit different this season since the Sixers turned out to be one of the big winners from the offseason thanks to the additions of Al Horford and Josh Richardson on top of Kawhi Leonard being out of the conference after joining the Los Angeles Clippers.

All of a sudden, Philadelphia seemed like a team that would finally be able to advance past the semifinals when the time came down the road, and could even be talented enough to punch their ticket to the NBA Finals.

Looking this far ahead for the Sixers sounds crazy since as mentioned before, the season is barely a week old, but also it’s difficult not to be excited over this team’s potential.

When looking at some of the previous disappointment over the last couple of seasons, it’s great to see Philadelphia make an early statement to the rest of the league by being the last team standing in the undefeated department.

Now, the fun part comes of seeing how long the Sixers can keep this undefeated streak going, because as much as fans would love to see this last the entire season, everyone knows that first loss is going to come at some point.

But until then, at least Philadelphia can continue to enjoy this early success to show the rest of the conference they are in fact the real deal.