The Philadelphia 76ers eked out a 105-104 win over the Miami Heat on Wednesday night to earn the 7-seed in the Eastern Conference Playoffs and secure a first round series with the New York Knicks. That figures to be one of the most entertaining series of the first round, as we’ll see Jalen Brunson look to continue his incredible season against a Sixers team that had top-3 aspirations in the East derailed by injury but are now getting healthy at the right time.
The series is a coin flip for many (including at the sportsbooks) and will be a really interesting test for both teams. Adding some fuel to the fire for this series was Paul Reed, who went on FanDuel’s Run It Back show on Thursday and said, matter of factly, that the Sixers wanted the 7-seed and a matchup with the Knicks rather than the 8-seed and a matchup with the Celtics because, “that’s the easier team.”
"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
This unsurprisingly has been passed around social media but, objectively, Reed is right. The Celtics were the NBA’s best team this season by a healthy margin and won the Eastern Conference by a whopping 14 games over the Knicks. By any definition, they are the harder team to face and the Sixers absolutely should want a first round matchup with New York rather than Boston. At the same time, the Knicks still could very well win this series and if they do, you can bet Reed’s comments will once again make their way around Knicks Twitter as part of the victory lap. The biggest issue was the word choice of “easier,” which I’m sure the Knicks will use as a little added fuel going into this series.
