Sixers Make Postseason Play-In Tournament: What To Know

PHILADELPHIA, PA — From the bowels of a prolonged tanking and rebuild, to repeated playoff heartbreak, to sudden and dramatic collapse, the Process-era Philadelphia 76ers have stopped off at every circle of hell over the past 13 years.

Battered and beaten but not yet defeated, the Sixers will take to the hardwood for the NBA's postseason play-in tournament Wednesday night.

They're not expected to make it far. As the 7th seed, they'll host the 8th seed Orlando Magic. In the best case scenario, they win that game and head to a best of seven series against the 2nd seed Boston Celtics, where they would be huge underdogs.

As recently as days ago the Sixers were still seen as a dark horse Cinderella candidate to make a deep run. But so much depends upon their seven-foot force of nature so cursed by the fickle basketball gods. For the third time in eight years of Philly reaching the playoffs, Joel Embiid has come down with a severe injury on the eve of the postseason.

This time it was an emergency appendectomy. The big man went under the knife on April 9. There is no timeline for his return, but players typically miss at least two to four weeks with that kind of injury.

The Sixers are not toothless without him. They have another budding superstar in Tyrese Maxey, but he's also missed time due to injury this year. They have a resurgent 35-year-old Paul George, though he's missed significant time to injuries himself in the past two years. They literally hit the lottery with third overall draft pick V.J. Edgecombe, who has emerged as a future star in his age 20 season, but he's never played in the postseason before.

But they play the games for a reason. Rarely do the one seeds meet in the championship in any sport, regardless of how inevitable the inertia of statistics may appear before the games begin. The Sixers also played to a 2-2 record against Boston this year, their hypothetical round one opponent should they win Wednesday.

Game time, TV, tickets, odds

The play-in Wednesday will be held at Xfinity Mobile Arena in south Philadelphia on Wednesday night. Tip-off is at 7 p.m.

The game will be broadcast exclusively on Amazon Prime. The radio call will be on 97.5 The Fanatic.

Tickets are quite affordable for the play-in game, starting at $23 for upper level seats as of Monday afternoon.

The Sixers are minus 1.5 point favorites, and minus 122 on the Moneyline, according to Fanduel Sportsbook.

How the play-in tournament works

The top six seeds in each conference receive an automatic entry in the postseason. The 7th through 10th seeds participate in the play-in.

The play-in starts with the 7th and the 8th seeds (in the east, the Sixers and Magic) facing off, as well as the 9th and the 10th seeds. The winner of the 7-8 game locks in the 7th seed, and plays the 2nd seed in the opening round. The loser of the 9-10 game is eliminated.

The loser of the 7-8 game plays the winner of the 9-10 game. The winner of that game becomes the 8th seed.

The Sixers also participated in the play-in as the 7th seed in the 2023-24 season. They advanced but lost in the first round to the New York Knicks, 4-2.

Legacy, loss, logo threes

The Process-era Sixers made the playoffs for seven straight years from 2017-18 to 2023-24. Injuries brought the ship to a smoking husk on the banks of the Delaware last April. Without either Maxey or Embiid, the team slogged to a horrific 24-58 record that was all too reminiscent of the worst of the tanking years.

But a year later, despite more injuries to Maxey, George, and most horribly, Embiid, the Sixers have fought all the way back to the play-in game. A year ago, before the Edgecombe draft pick, before Embiid proved he could return to his MVP form, before Maxey took the next step and became a bonafide superstar, there were serious doubts as to this core's ability to return to this playoffs.

During those seven straight years of playoff berths, the Sixers were often the favorite. They were agonizingly close twice, during two trips to Game 7 of the eastern conference semifinals. Both ended in brutal fashion. There was the infamous Kawhi Leonard bouncing buzzer-beater in Game 7 in 2019. Then there was the blown lead against the Celtics in Game 6 2023, followed by a poor showing in Game 7. Both were years Embiid was at the top of his game.

The Sixers will need to advance to that first round series against the Celtics, and then keep it competitive enough the first few games, to give the big man a chance to come back. If he does, the Sixers still have a chance rewrite an all-too familiar history and make a magic run to the NBA Finals. For now, they're still in the "it's not about how hard you get hit..." stage of Philly underdog parables.