The Philadelphia 76ers handled business, defeating the Miami Heat in the play-in game on Wednesday, 105-104. The win secured the No. 7 seed in the East and a date with the New York Knicks in the first round.
The other option for Philadelphia, if it had lost to the Heat, would been another play-in game to determine the No. 8 seed, which would faced the No. 1 Boston Celtics.
Sixers big man Paul Reed hopped on “Run it Back” with FanDuel and might have given the Knicks some bulletin board material:
We ain’t ducking no smoke, but yeah. We wanted the Knicks matchup. Of course, that’s the easier team, I guess, but it’s gonna be fun. We match up pretty well with them. They’ve got a great guard. We’ve got a great guard. We also got Joel (Embiid), you know, MVP. So like you said earlier, he’s one of the most unstoppable guys in the league right now. So they’re gonna have to send triple teams. He’s gonna get everybody else involved. I’m sure of it.
"We ain't ducking no smoke, but yeah we wanted the #Knicks matchup, that's the easier team…" @Bball_paul on why winning last night's game, and avoiding the #Celtics was so important 👀 pic.twitter.com/okdBDxpp5w
— Run It Back (@RunItBackFDTV) April 18, 2024
To Reed’s point, any team would obviously want to play the Knicks instead of the Celtics. The Sixers have had their troubles with Boston in the past and New York, while an obviously tough team that deserves respect, is not quite the challenge the Celtics are.
Either way, NBA teams will use anything for motivation so one has to wonder how the Knicks will take what Reed said about them.
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