The Celtics’ trip to Philadelphia comes with plenty of noise around it, but the real story is much simpler: two of the East’s best teams are meeting in a November game that should tell us something.
Boston and the 76ers have both opened the season near the top of the conference, separated in the standings only by the extra game Philadelphia has played and won. The attention has drifted toward Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, yet the bigger picture is that these teams have started in strikingly similar fashion.
Their early schedules have lined up in a lot of the same ways. Each team has played seven games against opponents currently below .500, with both sides seeing Chicago twice and picking up wins over Milwaukee and Charlotte. Both have also lost to Detroit and beaten New York, which makes this matchup feel like an early checkpoint on how real their hot starts are.
Philadelphia does have a few results that separate it from Boston. The Sixers added another win over the Knicks, got a revenge win over the Pistons, and also took a blowout loss to the Cavaliers, who are 5-6 right now.
Boston, though, has looked more convincing on the whole. The Celtics’ point differential sits at +10.7, which leads the East, and their net rating of +11.6 is tied with the Spurs for the best mark in the league.
So the stage at Xfinity Mobile Arena is less about off-court chatter and more about which team gets a reality check and which one gets some validation for the path it has taken to this point.
There will probably be some finger-pointing and trash talking mixed in, because that’s how these games tend to go once the spotlight gets hot. But Boston has bigger things in front of it, including a back-to-back against a tough Toronto Raptors team. The Celtics also need to keep Mitchell Robinson moving in the right direction and build on the chemistry and stamina he showed in Milwaukee, while sorting out a starting lineup and rotations that are still a work in progress.
Philadelphia has its own issues to handle, too. The Sixers should be focused on fixing an offense that doesn’t have to lean on Tyrese Maxey every other night, not on the Dread Pirate Jaylen captaining the pirate ship Revenge.
It may be fitting that all of this is unfolding in the City of Brotherly Love, but the drama is just window dressing. Both teams see the other as a hurdle, and this game gives them a chance to find out where they really stand this early in the season.
The noise can wait. The basketball matters more.
In Other News...
Joel Embiid Just Gave The Sixers Another Brutal Health Scare
Joel Embiid gave the 76ers another tense moment in their game against the Celtics when he took a hard fall and limped to the locker room before halftime. He did come back for the second half, which was the immediate relief Philadelphia needed, but the scene was a reminder of how fragile the margin is around its franchise center.
Embiid has already been working through plantar fasciitis and recently tweaked his ankle, so any new stumble naturally sets off alarms for a team with limited depth behind him at center. His status is expected to be day-to-day, but for the Sixers, the bigger concern is how often they can keep absorbing these scares without it turning into something more serious. [Read more 🡒]
Joel Embiid Is Back In A Debate Sixers Fans Dread
Joel Embiid gave the Sixers another uneasy reminder of how quickly a game can turn tense when he went down awkwardly against the Celtics and appeared to tweak his ankle before heading off the floor at halftime. He did return for the second half and even knocked down a three-pointer, but the sequence was enough to put Philadelphia back in the familiar position of monitoring every stumble, grimace and slow walk from its franchise center.
Bill Simmons added another layer to the conversation by criticizing Embiids reactions to injuries, a familiar and frustrating topic for a fan base that has heard plenty of outside commentary about its star. For the Sixers, the concern is less about the debate itself than the bigger picture around Embiids availability and how every minor scare seems to reopen the same conversation all over again. [Read more 🡒]
Sixers Face A Big Thursday Question With Two Stars Uncertain
Thursdays injury report has put a familiar kind of uncertainty around the Sixers home game against Toronto, with Joel Embiid listed as questionable because of foot management. The matchup already carries the usual early-season interest, but availability is once again the first storyline for Philadelphia, which is trying to sort out its rotation while managing key bodies carefully.
LeBron James is also on the questionable list because of back management, adding another layer to the nights uncertainty even before tipoff. The Sixers will also be without Adem Bona, who is sidelined by a cervical spine sprain, and Dominick Barlow, who is out with a back injury, while Toronto remains shorthanded too with Kawhi Leonard ruled out for at least another week because of knee issues. [Read more 🡒]