The Sixers First Game Back Already Has Us Missing Life Without Sports
It’s been a long 4 and 1/2 months since we last saw our Sixers play an official basketball game and everyone was excited to see them play again. Now, most of us probably wish the season just stayed canceled. While everyones minds will probably change in a day or two, Sixers fans got a brutal reminder that sports can be more excruciating than joyful. More frustrating that fun. More stressful than entertaining.
And that was exactly the case in their first seeding game against the Indiana Pacers, an extremely important game for their seeding in the playoffs. In a game most expected them to win, they let a lesser known player have a career game. TJ Warren of the Pacers played like Reggie Miller and Paul George combined with 53 points, including two dagger three pointers at the end of the game, the kind of shots everyone knew were going in when he shot them.
It was a classic Process Era kind of game: Young players relying on their talent to score and build a lead but never maintain it. Constant turnovers, never making a big defensive stop, and having no answer for the hottest player in the game. One minute they go on a stretch having fans believe they got the game in the bag, the next they let it get away.
While sports fans today can be very reactionary, Sixers fans see the sky falling: They’ll go 4-4 in these seeding games in which they were supposed to win 6 or 7 of them and lose to the Celtics in the first round in five. Okay, maybe that won’t happen. Maybe they’ll recover and still overtake Indiana in the seedings, take on Miami, and go on an exciting run to the Eastern Conference Finals and have a shot for the NBA Championship in the most unpredictable season ever.
Some bad first games can be an anomaly for teams and they bounce back. Others can set the tone for a bad stretch and it all goes downhill from there. The 2019-20 Sixers are defined by their Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde performances at home and away (By the way did you know that in the original Jekyll and Hyde book the fact that they were the same person was the big twist at the end?), and right now they play more like the road Sixers than the home Sixers. The only way this loss can be justified is if TJ Warren has a Kawhi Leonard type of postseason and wins NBA Finals MVP.
Still, this loss was just one game and they have seven more to improve upon entering the playoffs. But goodness please don’t have another game like this Sixers, because it made us miss the quiet and boring days of this Spring and Summer.