Scouting the Sixers’ final eight regular-season games
The Philadelphia 76ers vs. the Indiana Pacers
The Philadelphia 76ers’ first game of the relaunch regular season may actually be a preview of their first-round playoff matchup.
Currently ranked the fifth team in the East thanks to a pair of tiebreaker wins over the Sixers last year, the Indiana Pacers are a team built diametrically opposed to Elton Brand’s roster composition strategy.
With a duo of super-talented starting-caliber guards in Victor Oladipo, and ex-public enemy number one Malcolm Brogdon – not to mention intriguing reserves like Aaron Holiday, Justin Holiday, and our old friend T.J. McConnell – Nate McMillan’s squad can throw scoring guard, after scoring guard, after scoring guard at Brett Brown’s super-sized defense and challenge them to a track meet for a full 48-minute contest.
In the frontcourt, the Pacers have a pair of four-five combo bigs in Domantas Sabonis and Myles Turner, though historically, neither has been particularly effective at stopping Joel Embiid in the paint, or even really slowing him down.
If the Philadelphia 76ers are going to beat the Pacers, they’ll need to do so with a measured, methodical gameplan built around attacking the paint and exploiting their size against smaller defenders; a task made easier if both Josh Richardson and Matisse Thybulle are firing on all cylinders. Still, for my money, this game looks like a pretty obvious trap game that shocks the team back to life and launches them into a string of more consequential games.