Sixers Get One Last Chance Against Milwaukee to Prove They're Worthy

On the doorstep of 50 wins, and to show the world they’re ready.

[photo: Stacy Revere/Getty Images]

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Sixers Record: 49-28, 4th in East

Well, we nearly got "They always lose this game" trending nationally on Twitter on Sunday with the 76ers down by five with 2:30 to go at home against the Orlando Magic. With Terrence Ross hitting six of his first eight threes, Nik Vucevic going at Joel Embiid in the post like Jo was wearing a Doug Collins jersey, and Markelle Fultz just one dime away from a triple-double (points, assists, and SB Nation "Bet you wish you were nicer to him now, huh, Philly?" tweets), it was the Suns game all over again. But Furkan Korkmaz, ice-cold all game, hit a huge three with 90 seconds to go, and Embiid slammed home a Tobias Harris miss with 20 seconds to go to tie things up. Embiid and Josh Richardson (35 and 27 on the night, respectively) took over in OT, and the Sixers escaped with the 114-109 victory.

Why did a loss seem practically inevitable on Sunday? Well, aside from the fact that Orlando has given us fits seemingly since Hedo Turkoglu hit that shot over Thaddeus Young in Game Four of the 2009 playoffs, it was because the Sixers were almost certainly looking ahead to the game they have coming up tonight: hosting the Milwaukee Bucks. It'll be the first time the two teams have played since that fateful February game where Ben Simmons played the first four minutes and Sixers fans spent the last 44 staring daggers at the coaching and medical staff for letting him play at all. We ended up getting clobbered in that one, like the one before it, kinda sapping the momentum we'd built with that signature win over Milwaukee on Christmas. Now, it's probably the only meaningful game we have left on the schedule.

Well... maybe "meaningful" is something of a stretch at this point. For a game to be meaningful, both teams kinda have to care at least a little bit, and I'm not totally sure the Bucks qualify in that respect. With five games to go in the season, they've long since locked up the No. 1 seed in the East, while their magic number is down to two for them clinching the best record in the NBA -- and they've already lost too many games to win 70 for the year. Brook Lopez is nursing a bum ankle, and Khris Middleton left their last game against Boston with some shoulder ailment we still haven't gotten official word on. The Christmas Game, this ain't.

Still, if we know one thing about Mike J.H. Budenholzer, it's that he wants his team to win every single regular season game no matter how abstractly meaningless -- and with the Sixers essentially locked into the 4-5 matchup with Miami, the Bucks know they have a pretty good chance of facing us in the second round. Giannis & Co. will almost certainly want to make it three drubbings in a row, lest we use this game to find a way into talk ourselves into being on anywhere near the same level as Milwaukee again.

It would be a pretty nice punctuation mark to one of the best months of Sixers basketball we've seen this season. Since that vomit-on-cue loss to the Little Giants of Golden State exactly a month ago, Philly's gone an impressive 12-2 -- and if it wasn't for that embarrassing "2" racked up in Chicago and at home against Phoenix, we'd be talking about pushing Boston for the three seed right now. Embiid has played like an MVP candidate, Horf has silenced the haters (at least the ones who were booing him during team intros), Shake has been the straw that stirs the drink, Tobias Harris has been Tobias Harris. The last month might not have changed your opinion about the Sixers' ceiling, but it's given you a nice break from being slammed against their floor.

"Hell yes I've liked what I've seen from our guys lately," Brett Brown raved at media availability yesterday, looking and sounding more like Mike Love of the Beach Boys with every passing day. "I mean, when you look at where we were the last couple times we played this team -- at the end of that tough road trip in early February, and then with Ben hurting a couple weeks later -- you come back now, and we've won 12 of 14, and some wins I would consider signature wins of our season. I know our guys have been looking forward to this game for a while now, wanting to prove that they're better than they've shown the last two times. And all respect in the world to Milwaukee -- they're a great basketball team, and they've had a hell of a season -- but with the toughness and togetherness our team has shown lately, I like our chances against anyone."

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If he has additional reason for optimism -- aside from the game being at home, where the Sixers are still 36-3 on the season -- it would probably be that Ben Simmons is starting to look pretty healthy again. He was scrimmaging with the team for short stretches at practice yesterday, and some reporters caught him skying for a fast-break dunk over Kyle O'Quinn that got the entire gym buzzing. Brett downplayed the significance of the dunk when asked, and wouldn't commit to a timetable for his return to game action, but that of course didn't stop Sixers Twitter from snort-emojing like there was no tomorrow. (News that Matisse Thybulle's ankle sprain was a Grade I, meaning he also could be back in time for the playoffs, certainly helped with that.) 

Anyway, tonight's the night to show those guys what's worth hurrying back for with this team. Scoring their 50th win of the season against the team they'll have to go through to avoid a third straight season of second-round heartbreak? Pretty good argument for it still being too early to write our guys off. Besides, they're not the only ones who need to get back in postseason shape: Have us Process Trusters really rallied behind the Sixers for any game since the last L in Milwaukee? I'd say it's time to get ourselves back to that place. We did it last year against the Celtics, we can certainly do it tonight against the Bucks. If the Process has taught us anything, it's that any game is meaningful if we treat it like it is.