NEW YORK — The Philadelphia 76ers handled their business on Saturday when they finished the Brooklyn Nets, 96-88, in Game 4 of their first-round series. The win finished the sweep despite the Sixers not having Joel Embiid due to a knee injury. The Sixers now move on to the next challenge.
For Philadelphia to advance further in the playoffs and reach its ultimate goal of winning a championship, it will need to continue to be a tough-minded team. Winning Game 4 was a good start considering the Sixers did not have Embiid and they could have easily dropped it and returned home for Game 5 and finished it then. Not this time around.
Tobias Harris, who has been one to call out the Sixers for their lack of toughness at different times, has seen his team grow in that area.
“For the whole group, we’ve shown through the year different occurrences of sticking with it,” Harris said after the win. “You look at our record on the road as well, different guys in the lineup from time to time and being able to just find a way to get victories. It’s not always pretty at different moments, but I think for the most part, we’ve done a great job of battling and fighting through and to be honest, there’s still going to be a lot more adversity to come. We’re on a team that’s fighting for a championship, those types of hurdles you’re going to have to fight.”
To be fair, this Nets team wasn’t very good. They deserve a ton of credit for picking up the pieces and still making the playoffs after trading away Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving. But they made the playoffs because Durant and Irving set them up very nicely before being traded away.
The Sixers were supposed to do this. Brooklyn just isn’t that good, but the fact that they took care of business is a good sign. They had a chance to do so against the Toronto Raptors in 2022 and failed to do so.
“Experience is a huge thing in this game,” Harris said. “Having guys who have been there, having guys who’ve gotten — Tuck (PJ Tucker) who has won a championship. You guys don’t see all this stuff, but from the layup line, the way that he was adamant about focus on we’re gonna win tonight. We’re going to sweep like, those type of things just show the winning attitude and winning nature of who he is.”
Having Tucker around is so important to this Sixers team. His voice and his presence are such a big help for this group in order to keep them focused and moving forward and he was a big reason for the sweep of the Nets.
“That rubs off all the other guys on the team because you get a guy like that who knows his role, who’s been there as well and knows what it takes,” Harris finished. “So adding those types of guys and just adding great pieces to compliment on. Paul Reed had a great game tonight just coming out with playing with great energy and not getting rattled by whatever expectation he had for starting tonight, but all those little things, they add up at the end of the day to help us win.”
The Sixers will wait and prepare for either the Boston Celtics or the Atlanta Hawks in the second round.
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