The Philadelphia 76ers are officially locked into the 6 seed in the 2020 NBA Playoffs and they will face off with a familiar foe in the rival Boston Celtics. The last time they faced Boston in the playoffs was in 2018 and the Celtics took them out in five games.
At the time, Boston possessed a veteran defensive leader and stopper in the form of Al Horford. He bothered Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons on a regular basis that entire series and now that he is on the other side of this matchup, coach Brett Brown is hoping that he can flip things defensively.
“I mean he’s just so multi-purposed,” Brown asked. “When you lose somebody like Ben Simmons and you’re looking around at, where are you going to make stuff up as it relates especially to the defensive side of it, some of it you can ask him to do. He’s obviously a different athlete than Ben is, but his intellect and his lateral quickness and his toughness, those can overcompensate for a lot, and we have all seen firsthand the Celtics defensive success that he had on a few of our players. You look forward to flipping the uniform and bringing it more our way and he will be very important, especially as I said without Ben Simmons.”
A guy like Simmons was having one of the more elite defensive seasons in the league as he was able to do so many things on that end of the floor. Horford–while obviously not the athlete Simmons is–can bother some of the better offensive players both out on the perimeter and on the interior.
For example, he bothered Toronto Raptors star Pascal Siakam all night on Wednesday and that effort can really be taken into the playoffs against the Celtics. As it is set up, if Philadelphia can get past Boston, they would take Toronto in Round 2 again and give Horford a crack at Siakam.
“Just making sure that I stay between him and the basket,” Horford said of Siakam. “I’ve been matched up against Pascal over the years and he’s a great player. For me, it’s just making sure that I’m containing him and not giving him anything easy. That’s how I play him.”
The Sixers have one seeding game left on Friday before they officially prepare for the Celtics for playoff time. [lawrence-related id=36772,36769,36760]