Sixers Grit Past Magic In Streetball Scrum, Advance To NBA Playoffs

PHILADELPHIA, PA — There was a moment in south Philadelphia Wednesday night when the Sixers turned to six foot eleven back up center Andre Drummond, looming massive beyond the arc, an ocean of unguarded hardwood space about him, that veered to tragicomedy when he hurled up the sort of three point attempt that never goes in.

Or too the image of the outstretched arm of VJ Edgecombe, twisted in an ugly half-dive, slapping at the ball for a steal the moment after he had turned it over.

Or Kelly Oubre Jr. purposefully slamming into the back of Orlando's Paolo Banchero and sending him crashing to the ground, before tossing his red dyed mass of curly hair back in a maniacal Joker laugh.

The Sixers won Wednesday night's play-in tournament game against the Magic, 109-97, securing the seventh seed in the playoffs. They'll ship up to Boston in the next few days. Game one of the Eastern Conference quarterfinals is Sunday night.

Somehow, Drummond's shot went in. Edgecombe did slap the ball free and the Sixers recovered it. And Oubre-channeling-Rodman received a double technical, but stayed in the game for forty minutes and dropped nineteen points.

There was nothing pretty about the sixty minutes of streetball scrum that more closely resembled the chaos of a rugby game restarting play than a professional basketball contest. But it doesn't matter. Perhaps it is fitting that the Sixers were playing over the same square footage where the Flyers chipped and clawed their way into their first playoff birth in six years just some forty eight hours earlier.

“I was tweaking a little bit tonight,” Edgecombe said during the postgame press conference. “If I gotta play wild for us to win, I’ll play wild.”

Wild, raw, acrobatic, unsightly, and effective. Edgecombe made some of the game’s most impossible plays. He seemed to be running full tilt every second the ball was in play. It was effective.

The Magic were fully complicit in Wednesday's homely hoops. They contributed fourteen of the game's twenty five turnovers, more than twice the NBA average of twelve per game. The teams combined for forty eight fouls, including five technicals.

As anyone watching can see, this is not the Sixers team of much of the past decade, when Joel Embiid performed unspeakable acrobatics for his size that would so often leave the rest of the league swatting at the air he'd passed through long milliseconds before. The Sixers do not dominate. When they've won this year, against teams both good and bad, even on the back of another budding superstar in Tyrese Maxey, they've done it with grit, scrappy play, and no small share of luck.

Of course Dr. J, Dr. Naismith, and whatever baller brahmans may be owe the Sixers a bounce or twenty. No team, no franchise in basketball has been more cursed this century. Embiid, for instance, has suffered some sort of serious injury on the eve of the postseason in six of the last eight years. And no one needs reminding of what forces of evil were once summoned by Kawhi Leonard.

So yes, Andre Drummond, who once had a career stretch of three years where he didn't even make a single attempt from beyond the arc, drained two three pointers on Wednesday night. Nothing but net. And Philly's season will survive long enough to give Embiid, who underwent appendectomy surgery on April 10, enough time to possibly return by the middle of the series in Boston.

This will be the fourth time the Process-era Sixers meet the Celtics in the postseason. Boston has won every time. 2018. 2020. 2023. All of those Sixers teams were better, deeper, and healthier than this one.

Boston, the second seed in the east, will once again be the overwhelming favorite to win this year. But it should be noted the Sixers split the season series with the Celtics, 2-2. Embiid was only on the court for 20 minutes of one of the wins, and he contributed only four points. The Sixers won twice without him. They can do it again. How hideous, how grotesquely beautiful, it could be.

First round schedule

Game 1 - Sunday, April 19 1:00 p.m., TD Garden (Boston) ABC, Fubo
Game 2 - Tuesday, April 21 7:00 p.m., TD Garden (Boston) Peacock, NBCSN
Game 3 - Friday, April 24 7:00 p.m., Xfinity Mobile Arena (Philly) Amazon Prime
Game 4 - Sunday, April 26 7:00 p.m., Xfinity Mobile Arena (Philly) NBC, Peacock
Game 5 - (if necessary) Tuesday, April 28, time TBD, TD Garden (Boston)
Game 6 - (if necessary) Thursday, April 30, time TBD, Xfinity Mobile Arena (Philly)
Game 7 - (if necessary) Saturday, May 2, time TBD, TD Garden (Boston)