The Philadelphia 76ers are looking to avoid a season sweep at the hands of the conference rival Boston Celtics Wednesday night.
With the playoffs nearing, it’s seemingly important that this young Philadelphia squad gets over the Celtics’ hump. After all, head coach Brett Brown and the Sixers have lost 21 of 24 to Boston since the 2014-15 campaign.
According to Brown himself, Wednesday night’s home game isn’t just a regular-season outing. Rather, it’s more important than that for Philly.
This is a much different stance than most head coaches would take. Sure the regular season is important. But it’s all about what happens in April and moving forward.
That’s obviously not the case when it comes to Brown and his still-young Sixers team.
Philadelphia heads into the game pretty much etched in stone as the No. 3 seed back east. It’s four games behind Toronto for the No. 2 spot and 2.5 games ahead of Indiana for the No. 3 seed.
Meanwhile, Boston finds itself as the fifth seed — only three games behind Philly for a top-three spot.
In a sense, this game is big for both teams. But from a momentum perspective, it’s much bigger for the home-standing Sixers.