Ranking The Sixers’ Best To Worst Matchups In The 2022 NBA Playoffs

The 2022 NBA playoffs begin next weekend, and the Philadelphia 76ers are barreling straight toward a first-round matchup against the Toronto Raptors.

After their win over the Detroit Pistons on Friday night, the Milwaukee Bucks can fall no lower than No. 3. If the Sixers beat the Indiana Pacers on Saturday and Detroit Pistons on Sunday, they’ll need the Boston Celtics to lose their regular-season finale to the Memphis Grizzlies to move up to No. 3.

Otherwise, they’ll be locked into No. 4 and will face a Toronto team that has beaten them twice within the last month at less than full strength.

We’ll have a full playoff preview next week once their seeding is set in stone. For now, we’re taking a bigger-picture look at which playoff teams they should hope to draw on their quest for the Larry O’Brien Trophy and which teams they should desperately hope to avoid.

We’ll go from best to worst, starting with a team that’s been in a tailspin for the past few months.

1. Chicago Bulls

On Jan. 7, the Chicago Bulls were 26-10 and were sitting atop the Eastern Conference with a 2.5-game lead over any other team. They’ve gone 19-26 since then and are 4-10 in their past 14 games.

Injuries are to blame for the Bulls’ drastic decline. Alex Caruso missed all but two games from Christmas Day until March 12. Lonzo Ball has been sidelined since the middle of January with a torn meniscus, and the Bulls recently ruled him out for the remainder of the season.

Ball and Caruso were the lifeblood of Chicago’s feisty defense over the first few months of the season. With those two on the floor, the Bulls allowed only 104.6 points per 100 possessions, according to PBPStats. Without Ball, they’ve allowed 116.5 points per 100 possessions, which would be the league’s worst mark this season.

Zach LaVine has also been hampered by a knee injury that he’s gutting through. As great as DeMar DeRozan has been this season, the Sixers would vastly prefer the Ball-less Bulls in the first round over the Raptors.

2. Charlotte Hornets

The key to beating the Sixers is having a way to slow down MVP candidate Joel Embiid. The Charlotte Hornets have… the opposite of that.

With all due respect to Mason Plumlee, P.J. Washington and Montrezl Harrell, none of them stand a chance against Embiid in single coverage. That means the Hornets would have to routinely double-team him, except he’s gotten far better at spraying out passes to open shooters.

The Hornets also don’t have an elite wing stopper who can harass James Harden into an off shooting night. They’re 23rd in defensive rating on the season, and the Sixers just lit them up for a season-high 144 points last week.

The Sixers wouldn’t always shoot nearly 61 percent from the field and 49 percent from three-point range against the Hornets, but they have the offensive firepower to keep up in a track meet. The Hornets just don’t match up well personnel-wise to exploit the Sixers’ weaknesses.

3. Cleveland Cavaliers

The Sixers went 4-0 against the Cleveland Cavaliers during the regular season, but three of those four wins came by six points or fewer. The Cavs were also missing All-Star center Jarrett Allen for the last two matchups, which is not a recipe for success against a dominant big man like Embiid.

However, Allen still has yet to return from the finger fracture that he suffered in early March. He went through a pregame workout Friday, but the “concern surrounding the injury is pain tolerance,” according to Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com.

Meanwhile, Rookie of the Year candidate Evan Mobley just missed five games with a sprained ankle, although he returned Friday against the Nets and stuffed the stat sheet with 17 points on 6-of-11 shooting, seven rebounds, three assists, two steals and two blocks. While Allen’s availability for the play-in tournament and playoffs remains in question, Mobley should be good to go.

The Cavaliers might be one perimeter creator short of being able to pull off the upset against the Sixers. Darius Garland can light up Tyrese Maxey, but Matisse Thybulle should have little trouble forcing Caris LeVert into inefficient nights more often than not, and James Harden can hide on offensive non-factor Isaac Okoro.

Meanwhile, even if Allen and Mobley are both healthy, Embiid lit them up for a 40-point, 14-rebound, 10-assist triple-double in the first meeting between these two teams. He’s proved capable of dominating this matchup throughout the season, and there’s little reason to expect that to change if these two teams do meet in the playoffs.

4. Atlanta Hawks

The Atlanta Hawks made a surprise run to the Eastern Conference Finals last year, going right through the Sixers in the second round to do so. That loss sent the Sixers into an existential crisis that resulted in them trading a package including Ben Simmons to the Nets at the trade deadline for Harden.

Despite the months-long Simmons drama, the Sixers are still on pace to finish with 50 wins and a top-four seed in the East. Meanwhile, the Hawks barely eked out a .500 record and are locked into the play-in tournament.

If the Hawks and Sixers do meet again in the playoffs, the Sixers can’t take them lightly. The Hawks have the second-best offensive rating in the league, trailing only the Utah Jazz, as Trae Young and Co. can get hot at a moment’s notice. (The Sixers learned that the hard way last year.)

However, Hawks forward John Collins has played only four games since the All-Star break as he recovers from a plantar fascia tear in his right foot along with damage to his right ring finger, according to Shams Charania of The Athletic. His availability for the playoffs is very much in question right now.

Collins averaged 15.1 points on 54.7 percent shooting and 10.0 rebounds in the Hawks’ seven-game upset over the Sixers last year. If he isn’t back in the fold and fully healthy, the Hawks might not have the size to contend with the Sixers this time around.

5. Miami Heat

Despite playing four times throughout the regular season, the Sixers and Miami Heat never faced one another at close to full strength.

Jimmy Butler, Bam Adebayo and Tyler Herro missed the first game, which the Heat won. Adebayo and Thybulle missed the second meeting, which the Sixers won. Harden and Kyle Lowry missed the third one, which the Heat won in runaway fashion, while Embiid and Harden missed the last meeting, which the Sixers somehow won regardless.

Maybe the team that’s at less than full strength would have the advantage in this matchup? In that case, P.J. Tucker’s recent calf strain may give the Heat the leg up.

Jokes aside, the Sixers might prefer the Heat to some of their other remaining alternatives. Lowry, Butler, Tucker and Adebayo form the backbone of the league’s fourth-best defense, but questions remain about Miami’s offensive spacing and half-court creation. Butler’s three-point shot has abandoned him all season (23.3 percent), and Adebayo is a complete non-factor from deep.

The Heat do have plenty of shooters between Herro, Duncan Robinson, Gabe Vincent and Max Strus who can swing a playoff game by themselves. They could easily bury the Sixers in an avalanche of threes unless the Sixers are locked in defensively.

If the Sixers finish as the No. 4 seed, these two teams could be on a collision course in Round 2. That’s no guarantee depending on their respective first-round opponents, though.

6. Toronto Raptors

When evaluating a potential playoff matchup, it’s important not to overreact to regular-season results. The 2013-14 San Antonio Spurs lost all four regular-season meetings against the Oklahoma City Thunder, only to beat them 4-2 in the Western Conference Finals that year.

It’s hard not to read into the Sixers’ two recent losses against the Raptors, though.

The Raptors were without All-Star guard Fred VanVleet and versatile wing OG Anunoby in each of those matchups, although they’re both expected to return for the playoffs. Despite that, the Sixers choked away early double-digit leads in both games, and Harden went a combined 8-of-24 in those games.

Had the Sixers won Thursday, they could locked themselves into a top-three seed by winning out and avoided the Raptors in the first round. Instead, they now may have personnel issues of their own to worry about.

Sixers wing Matisse Thybulle was “ineligible to play” in Toronto on Thursday, which implies that he didn’t meet Canada’s Covid-19 vaccine requirements. To be able to travel to Canada, a person must receive at least two doses of a Covid-19 vaccine “accepted for travel” (in other words, the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines) or one dose of the J&J vaccine.

Even if Thybulle got the J&J jab this past Friday, the first day he’d be eligible to enter Canada would be Friday, April 22, which all but ensures he’d miss at least Game 3. If he doesn’t get vaccinated, he’d miss every game in Toronto.

Thybulle alone wouldn’t swing this series. The Sixers might be doomed either way unless Harden starts looking like the superstar scorer that he was in his Houston days. But not having their best wing stopper for three games could put the Sixers even further behind the 8 ball in this series.

7. Milwaukee Bucks

Is it disrespectful to have the defending champs not atop this list? Perhaps. But matchups often dictate playoff series, and the Sixers match up better against the Milwaukee Bucks than the other two remaining teams in the East.

No team can stop Giannis Antetokounmpo, the two-time MVP and reigning Finals MVP, from getting his. In the Sixers’ recent loss to the Bucks, Antetokounmpo finished with 40 points on 16-of-24 shooting, 14 rebounds, six assists and three blocks, including a game-clinching one against Embiid on a putback attempt.

Despite Antetokounmpo’s heroics, the Sixers held an eight-point lead going into the fourth quarter and only lost by two. They also beat the Bucks in the final game before the All-Star break, although neither Harden nor Bucks center Brook Lopez played in that game.

In the most recent loss, Harden finished with 32 points on 9-of-17 shooting, which is his highest scoring output during his short tenure with the Sixers. He set the tone early by repeating driving to the basket and attempting to finish through contact rather than flailing his arms and begging for foul calls that never came.

Both of these teams will lean heavily on their starters in the playoffs, which means this series could come down to moves on the margins. The Bucks would have the clear advantage in that department, particularly given the chemistry they’ve established with their group over the past few years.

Either way, pitting two of the top MVP candidates against one another in the Eastern Conference Finals could set the stage for some electrifying moments.

8. Brooklyn Nets

Recency bias admittedly may be factoring in here. In their lone game against one another since the Harden-Simmons trade, the Nets pantsed the Sixers in Philadelphia, 129-100, in a game that somehow wasn’t even as close as the final score might suggest.

Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and Seth Curry took turns tormenting the Sixers’ overmatched defenders, finishing with a combined 71 points on 28-of-48 shooting (including 12-of-25 from deep). Meanwhile, Harden finished with only 11 points on a ghastly 3-of-17 shooting, while Embiid likewise struggled from the floor (5-of-17 on the night).

Simmons didn’t even play in his much-hyped return to Philadelphia that night. He’s continuing to recover from a back injury that has put his availability for the playoffs very much in question. Even if he’s able to return, the Nets will have to incorporate him on the fly, which seems difficult to pull off successfully in the midst of a playoff series.

It might not matter against the Sixers, who don’t have the personnel to match up well against the Nets.

Tobias Harris has played much better after a rocky start alongside Harden, but he stands no chance stopping Durant. Thybulle can’t fully contain Irving’s off-the-dribble wizardry, and Curry seemed to take particular joy in hunting Tyrese Maxey whenever the two were matched up against one another.

Former Sixers center Andre Drummond can’t stop Embiid one-on-one, which is why Embiid took 19 free-throw attempts in that game. But if the Sixers can’t stanch the bleeding on the perimeter, Embiid might need to score 40 in every game to give them a chance in a series against the Nets.

9. Boston Celtics

Somehow, that Nets loss wasn’t even the Sixers’ worst one of the season. They have the Boston Celtics to thank for that.

In their penultimate game before the All-Star break, the Sixers got blasted at home, 135-87, by the rival Celtics. Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum combined for 57 points on 19-of-34 shooting (including 9-of-15 from deep) in a game that was effectively over by halftime.

The Sixers weren’t at full strength for this matchup, as Harden had yet to make his debut with the team yet. Still, that doesn’t explain away a 48-point shellacking, particularly when the Sixers started their two best wing defenders, Thybulle and Danny Green, to keep Tatum and Brown in check.

The Celtics have their own injuries to worry about, as big man Robert Williams III is recovering from meniscus surgery that is likely to sideline him through the first round of the playoffs. However, he should be back in the fold before a potential Eastern Conference Finals clash between these two teams, and he didn’t even play in that pre-All-Star-break blowout, either.

The Sixers don’t have the personnel to slow down Tatum or Brown, and the combination of Williams, Al Horford, Daniel Theis and Grant Williams can give Embiid fits over the course of a playoff series. Celtics head coach Ime Udoka previously served as the Sixers’ defensive coordinator under former head coach Brett Brown, so he’s plenty familiar with Embiid.

The Celtics knocked the Sixers out of the playoffs in both the 2017-18 and 2019-20 seasons. They might be headed for a three-peat if the two meet in this year’s postseason.