For my next semester of passion blogs, I will be writing about the Philadelphia 76ers, the professional basketball team from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as members of the Eastern Conference Atlantic Division. They are coached by Brett Brown and play at the Wells Fargo Center in South Philadelphia.
At this point, the 76ers are exactly halfway done their 2019-2020 season. They have played 41 of their 82 regular season games and boast a record of 25-16, putting them 9 games over .500 (9 more wins than losses) and sixth in their conference. If the season were to end today, the Sixers would finish as 6th out of 8 in the Eastern Conference and make the playoffs, as the top 8 teams in each conference make the playoffs for a total of 16 teams. After finishing third in the Eastern Conference last season, the Sixers are looking to continue their season with hopes of moving up in the playoff picture come the end of April, typically when the season ends.
The last game the 76ers played was Monday evening against the Indiana Pacers in Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indiana. After a tight game, the Pacers pulled away with the win, 101-95. With this win, Indiana moved into fifth place in the East and knocked the Sixers to sixth. Guards Ben Simmons and Josh Richardson led Philadelphia with 24 and 23 points respectively, while forward Tobias Harris added another 15. Simmons also led the team with 14 rebounds, but his efforts were not enough to clinch the win. On the other side, T.J. Warren and Malcolm Brogdon both accumulated 21 points each for Indiana, while Myles Turner and Justin Holiday added another 14 each.
Sixers star center Joel Embiid, who has battled with injury and illness during his career this far, suffered a gruesome injury last Monday night that puts a bit of uncertainty in his availability over the next few weeks and into the spring. His ring finger was severely dislocated and, despite finishing the game with a heavily taped hand, the Sixers now realize that his injury is far worse than they originally suspected. They announced at the end of last week that Embiid had torn a ligament in his left hand and will undergo surgery to fix it. Although no set timetable has been set, many trainers believe that he will not be returning for quite some time.
Going into the midway point of the season, the Sixers are on a bit of a skid: they have dropped 6 of their last 8 games with all 6 coming on the road. Philadelphia coaches, players, and fans alike are struggling to figure out what the issue is with the current lineup and why it cannot seem to produce any recent victories while playing as the visiting team. As the second half of the season rolls around, Philadelphia needs to figure out its road problems sooner rather than later. Embiid’s injury does not help the equation, and the Sixers will need other players to step up in big ways if the team wants to continue playing at the level it should. Philadelphia has 2 home games this week, tomorrow night versus the Brooklyn Nets and Friday versus the Chicago Bulls, before hitting the road and squaring off against the Knicks in Madison Square Garden on Saturday night.