Sixers vs. Nets Ricky Roundtable

Zo, Adam, Spike and AU.

Adam Aaronson, whose legal name is Sixers Adam (@SixersAdam on Twitter), covers the Sixers for The Rights To Ricky Sanchez. He believes cantaloupe is the best food in existence, and is brought to you by the Official Realtor of The Process, Adam Ksebe.

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The playoffs are finally here! Following a 54-win season, the Sixers begin their chase for a championship against the new-look Brooklyn Nets, a team with young talent but without two superstars who were on their roster just a few months ago.

Many expect the Sixers to win this series handily. But they’re the Sixers. Surprises are inevitable.

In anticipation of the series beginning, I enlisted a few of my Team Ricky colleagues to answer some questions about this first round matchup.

Question #1: The Brooklyn Net who scares you most *not named Mikal Bridges*  is _____.
Adam Aaronson: To me, the clear answer is Spencer Dinwiddie. Nic Claxton may be their second-best player, but I can’t bring myself to worry about Joel Embiid’s scoring in any capacity anymore.

Aside from being a Sixers Killer in the past, Dinwiddie seems like the obvious choice if a non-Bridges member of the Nets has a terrific series. He can score in bunches and can easily swing a game if he can knock down tough shots.

Alonzo Jones: Seth Curry has gone nuclear as a Sixer before, so I always respect guys like that. I wouldn't say scared, but I wouldn't be surprised if he has a game three or four where he literally can't miss.

Spike Eskin: Nobody on the Nets is scary, including Bridges. He's a great player but if the Sixers lose because they were beaten by anyone on the Nets, I'd say we are all better off not having to watch them play the Celtics. Claxton is awesome though.

Andrew Unterberger: My real answer is Nic Claxton and Day’Ron Sharpe, but since my Q2 answer coming up should cover those dudes pretty well, I'll say Cam Thomas here. It's a weird thing, because he might not play much or at all in this series -- he's only on the fringes of the Nets' rotation when the team is full and healthy -- but he scored 60 points in 64 minutes against Philly this season, and I have little doubt he could average 35 a game in this series if he got the PT for it. He's the exact player who always proves an absolute matchup nightmare for the Sixers, a pure bucket-getter who we can never seem to prevent from getting to his spots. 

In a sense, it'll be a good thing if we see a lot of him in this series -- because it'd mean the Nets couldn't do much against our defense with their normal top two units, and they need to turn to Thomas in desperation for a jump-start. But it'd also mean him hitting a lot of 18-foot pull-up jumpers in the faces of De'Anthony Melton and Tyrese Maxey (or layup drives past the outstretched arms of Tobias Harris and P.J. Tucker), which I can't say I'm particularly looking forward to. 

Question #2: The Sixers' biggest weakness that Brooklyn can take advantage of during the series is _____.

Adam: It has to be rebounding, right? The Sixers have had a lot of difficulty keeping teams off the glass at times this season, and just Claxton alone can cause issues there with his length and leaping ability. I don’t anticipate this being a fatal flaw by any means, but it could be something that makes these games a bit more chaotic.

Zo: Doc Rivers giving Georges Niang a long leash. I personally think those should be Jalen McDaniels' minutes. Niang is pretty useless if he's not making shots, so if he starts cold and Doc opts to let him work it out, it could be a longer series than we’d like. 

Spike: The Sixers are slow and not particularly athletic. I imagine they will double team aggressively and force Embiid into some turnovers before he figures it out. 

AU: Rebounding, rebounding, rebounding. I mean this would be true in 80% of potential Sixers matchups this postseason, but it's particularly true against a team with Claxton and Sharpe -- the latter of whom is an even more prolific offensive rebounder than our beloved BBall. You can see it, can't you? Five times a night, the Sixers spend 20 seconds of the shot clock forcing a tough Brooklyn miss, but one of their bigs gets to the glass quicker than Embiid (or Niang, UGH), buys Brooklyn a second possession, kicks out to Bridges or Johnson, three points, vomit everywhere. They'll probably need every one of them to hang with Philly in this series... but they'll get most of 'em, and it's gonna suuuuuuuuuuck. 

Question #3: How many players will Doc Rivers try as a backup center during the first round -- over or under 2.5?

Adam: If we were talking about the entire playoff run, I would put money on the over. But in round one, I think BBall Paul and even some small-ball PJ Tucker minutes will suffice. It is going to be fascinating to see how long of a leash Paul Reed has, because oftentimes it hasn’t been long at all. In any case, Tucker at the five is a look that Rivers likes. We could see an emergency Dewayne Dedmon appearance at some point, but I do not think that it is coming in round one.

Zo: Over unfortunately. It's BBall Paul's job in my eyes but I could definitely see some small-ball PJ, a sprinkle of Dedmon and maybe even Trez (pukes).

Spike: Under.

AU: Total across the whole series? Over. But in our beloved Meaningful Minutes? Under. Doc might end up pulling the plug on Paul Reed for some PJ-at-the-five stretches here and there -- I think it's basically never a good idea, but whatever, there'll be at least one game where he can't resist -- but I can't see Doc actually opting for non-garbage-time Dedmon in this series unless Embiid or Reed get hurt. And that game's probably coming, but I'm betting it's in the next round, unfortunately.

Question #4: Assuming the Sixers win the series, which bench player has the best chance to be their unlikely hero? 

Adam: I’m going with McDaniels here. In the last handful of regular season games he began making a significant impact defensively, and for what it’s worth, he has also looked more comfortable offensively. He will certainly see a whole lot of Bridges, and if McDaniels can at least prevent him from going crazy, this series would become a whole lot easier.

Zo: Shake Milton is due for another 'Where the bleep did that come from?" game.

Spike: I'm going to go with McDaniels because it will give me a chance to talk about him being better than Thybulle.

AU: Is BBall's heroism ever unlikely at this point? I think this is gonna be a great series for him -- and we're probably gonna need a decent amount of him, both for his switchability on defense and his ability to compete on the boards. But if he's too obvious a savior at this point, I'll say McDaniels, who's been balling out lately and probably won't be overexposed on either end of the court in this matchup. (Boston... we'll see.)  

Question #5: And finally... Give me an official series prediction: who wins and in how many games?

Adam: You can always count on the Sixers to take a theoretically-easy task and make it as annoying as possible. But I still am going with a Sixers sweep here. Frankly, this has as much to do with my skepticism about Brooklyn’s talent as it does the Sixers. I would not be remotely surprised if the Nets steal a game, but this series should never become a cause of stress in the Sixers universe.

Zo: Mikal has been great for the Nets but it honestly hasn't translated to much. They are a fighting bunch but the talent disparity is too great. The Sixers have the three best players in the series and I think it'll show early and often. Sixers in a quick five, but hoping for four. 

Spike: Sixers in five. You don't go more than five games with some "fun league pass" team. 

AU: Sixers with the Douchebag's Sweep -- lose Game 1, win Games 2-5.  (If they do lose another game in the series, though, I'd bet on Game 3.)