Philly Front Office

Despite losing by 30, the Nets beat the Raptors last night. It wasn’t a must lose game for the Nets, but they pulled out (pulled in?) all the stops (gos?) last night. They just know what they’re doing. Getting past them for #5 is going to be incredibly difficult. Both teams have 9 games to play:

What was once an overwhelming scheduling advantage for Brooklyn has leveled out thanks to savvy Sixers losses to New Orleans and Washington. Both teams play Toronto and Washington once and have similar schedules otherwise with one little exception. The Nets still have to face New Orleans one more time. We had to strategically rest Quentin Grimes to pull out that loss. We’ll see what the Nets can come up with. This is going to be a battle.

Lottery Odds

Nets. Sixers. The battle of the century. With Toronto crushing the Nets last night, they are 3 games clear and becoming much less of a factor in the race for #5. They do have 1 each against Brooklyn and Philly, but losing either of those and their dream is over.

1 – 9.8%

2 – 9.9%

3 – 10.0%

4 – 10.1%

5 – 2.2%

6 – 20.1% (Odds split due to tiebreaker)

Total – 62.1 % chance to keep the pick

Playoff Odds

Magic Elimination Number: 3. It’s almost here. By the time the Heat and Sixers final buzzer sounds on Saturday, we could be eliminated!

(Note: If the Sixers qualify for the play-in but don’t end up making the playoffs, they still have a chance to win the lottery)

Per Basketball Reference, our current odds to finish in each place are:

10 or better – <.1%

11 or worse – >99.9%

Odds of winning the play-in and making the playoffs – >.1%

For those who just want to watch the world burn:

37.9% chance of missing the playoffs AND not keeping a draft pick (same)

Games to Follow Coming Up

Numbers in parenthesis is the number of games ahead and behind the Sixers in the standings. Sixers record is 23-50 with 9 games to play.

March 27

• Atlanta at Miami – The Heat did their job crushing old friend Jimmy Butler. I know the Warriors didn’t have Steph, but it’s pretty telling that Jimmy’s old teammates had a ton of extra juice against him. He did them dirty. A Miami win sets up Saturday as a Sixers elimination game!!!

March 28

• LA Clippers at Brooklyn (EVEN) – James Harden comes back to Brooklyn. Maybe he doesn’t play and they look past the Nets setting up a possible upset?
• Charlotte at Toronto (+3) – This is what Toronto didn’t consider when they began losing games on purpose. They had too many veteran tankers on their schedule. Charlotte, Utah, /washington, they know what they are doing. No amount of benching your talent is going to help you here Raps.
• Golden State at New Orleans (-3) – If Steph Curry is out, this is a completely different Warriors team. I still have hope!!!

March 29

• Miami at Philadelphia – This could be it, the night we finally hit 100% odds of NOT making the playoffs. Get the bottles ready.
• Brooklyn (EVEN) at Washington – This is a pivotal game in our quest to gain sole possession of #5.