Top 5 Questions for Knicks vs Sixers

I examine a series that doesn't give us much to go on.

Good morning! It’s almost go time. Tip off for Game 1 is tomorrow at 6pm on ESPN. We don’t have an injury report yet, but I’d expect both teams to have a clean slate besides De’Anthony Melton for Philly. There WILL be a halftime zoom tomorrow. Here’s the link.

Before we get to the series preview, a quick PSA about Autograph, the app I wrote about on Monday that rewards fans for being fans. Anyway, Autograph is offering a chance to purchase $24 tickets to Game 1 of the playoffs TODAY on the app, from 3:00 to 3:15 EST, after which a winner will be selected at random. If you haven’t already downloaded and signed up, use code KFS when you do. For those that don’t win, Autograph will be offering other discounted tickets and merch on the Knicks Fan Store. Check it out and enter…what have you got to lose?

Embracing the Unknown

It’s amazing how the conversation about a series can change over the course of a few days, even before the series begins.

At one point last week, when it became increasingly likely that the Knicks would face Philadelphia in round one, either in the 3/6 matchup or the 2/7, I started to wonder whether this Philly team was in the running for greatest bottom-two seed in history.

As I noted in the beginning of the week, the NBA expanded the playoffs to a 16-team field in 1984. In the 40 postseasons since, only 12 teams - six 7th seeds and six 8th seeds - have advanced to the second round from the bottom two spots.

Among the teams that comprise that 7.5 percent hit rate, a few seemed to catch lightning in a bottle. No one saw the unheralded Nuggets toppling the powerhouse Sonics in ‘94, just as few thought the “We Believe” Warriors could beat the 67-win Mavs. Similarly, no one expected Derrick Rose to tear his ACL in 2012, or Giannis Antetokounmpo to miss most of Game 1 and all of Games 2 & 3 against the Heat last season.

But other lower seeds seemed to be on more even footing going into the battle with their opponent. For as much of a nightmare as the regular season was in 1999, we knew those Knicks were evenly matched with Miami from the opening tip. The same went for the prior season, when New York upset the Heat as a seven-seed. In 2010, the seventh-seeded Spurs were one of eight West teams to win 50 games, and brought major championship pedigree when they upset the Mavs. The script flipped the next season when the tough-as-nails Grizzlies grounded and pounded San Antonio into submission from the eighth spot.

But aside from Tim Duncan in 2010 and LeBron James last season (when he and AD took down the Grizzlies after emerging from the play-in), no former MVP winner led the way in any of those upsets, and even that’s a misnomer considering James was 38 at the time and Duncan turned 34 during that upset of Dallas.

Joel Embiid just turned 30, and was in the midst of what seemed like his second consecutive MVP campaign when he went down with a knee injury on January 30. At that time, the Sixers were the third best team in the league by net rating, led by a starting five that had outscored teams by 34.0 points per 100 possession - best of any regularly used five-man unit in the NBA.

That Sixers team would not only have been the most formidable seventh or eighth seed in NBA history, but arguably the best bottom-five seed since the ‘95 Houston Rockets, who rode another reigning MVP center with dazzling post moves all the way to the title.

Even before Wednesday night’s game though, there was serious doubt as to whether the Knicks would get that version of the Sixers if they went on to defeat Miami.