On April 12, Beijing time, the NBA regular season has ended, and a total of eight teams in the East and West will compete for playoff places in the playoffs. For the Philadelphia 76ers, they once again saw the dawn of a championship victory in the post-Iverson era. This season, the "Enha combination" has rekindled the hopes of fans, Embiid has taken the scoring king, this season is very likely to steal the MVP from Jokic's hands, for the "African Emperor", the championship has become the most important target for him and Harden.
The 76ers have their own weaknesses, such as the lack of stable point guards on the bench, once Harden is off, the team's organization will be in chaos; once Embiid is off, the team's threat at both ends of the offensive and defensive ends is greatly reduced, in order to cover up the team's shortcomings as much as possible, Coach Rivers chose to increase Harden's playing time. The first round of the playoffs has been released, and their opponent is the Toronto Raptors, a team that can jump from a weak team in the early season to the top five in the East, showing its strong fighting ability.
In the four meetings between the two sides this season, the 76ers are in a clear disadvantage, and they have only achieved a record of 1 win and 3 losses. For the Raptors, they are not afraid of Embiid, on the contrary, Harden is the person they are most worried about, why do they say so? The Raptors have a tall interior line such as Barnes (2m 01), Siakam (2m 06), Anunoby (2m 01), Boucher (2m 06) and Achuva (2m 03), and as long as two are sent, they can cause embiid a lot of trouble on the defensive end.
And these players are all young and athletic. In the No. 1 position, the advantage of the 76ers is very obvious, Harden can form a crushing advantage, his breakthrough will cause a lot of damage to the Raptors, but the Raptors have been in excellent form recently, they have achieved a record of 8 wins and 2 losses in the past 10 games, plus Siakam is in hot form, it is not easy for the 76ers to win this game, and the Raptors are even expected to send the "Enha" two to go home early to fish.
The 76ers already have some absences on the roster, however, before the playoffs begin, they have again had bad news: the starting forward of 1.96 meters, the team's defensive sable sable will miss at least 2 of this series, that is, all of the games on the road against the Raptors, because Sable is not fully vaccinated. Therefore, Sebel can only play a maximum of 4 games in this series, which will be a big loss for the 76ers. Sebb has averaged 5.7 points and 2.3 rebounds per game this season, but his defensive prowess is outstanding, averaging 1.7 steals per game and ranks 3rd in the league and 15th in the league with 1.1 blocks per game.
The reason Harden can play more easily in Philadelphia is largely due to the defense of this team, they have Embiid, Sable, Harris and Maxi, so for Harden, he just needs to be more focused on the offense. Without Sable, the "defensive guru," the 76ers' home-court advantage could be wiped out, and Harden's championship dream could be shattered. To win this series, Embiid and Harden have to play super big.