Hailed by many as the dark horse of this year’s postseason, the Philadelphia 76ers open their campaign with a road game at Madison Square Garden vs the New York Knicks. Philadelphia’s only win in 4 regular season meetings came in this building, back in early March. Saturday’s game will be a completely different beast as the stakes are a lot higher, I expect a close finish unlike the 3 Knicks victories we saw in the regular season. From Philadelphia’s perspective the most important thing is the health of Joel Embiid. He didn’t have the best of games vs Miami in the play-in game, but he was able to contribute enough to propel his team to the postseason. The Knicks are one of his favorite opponents – in the last 10 meetings he’s averaging 28.6 points and 10.9 rebounds per game.
Ending the regular season with a win over the Chicago Bulls gave the Knicks the 2nd seed in the East for the first time in over a decade. Tom Thibodeau’s men are currently on a 5-game win streak, despite finding out Julius Randle has been ruled out for the season with his shoulder injury. Without his physicality down low it will be a challenge to slow down Embiid, expect a lot of fouls by Isaiah Hartenstein as he battles the reigning MVP down low. The Knicks will put the ball in the hands of Jalen Brunson who is having the best season of his career, he might end up getting a couple of MVP votes with his averages of 28.7 points and 6.7 assists per game. New York has gone 6-1 SU in their last 7 home games, they are also 11-2 SU in their last 13 vs Atlantic Division opponents.
