Brooklyn Nets vs Philadelphia 76ers preview: Closing time

48 minutes. For the Brooklyn Nets, they are 48 minutes away from officially closing the chapter on a disappointing, frustrating season. Between the bad basketball, constant arguments amongst the fanbase, and just general feeling of malaise surrounding the team, the first 81 games have been a slog. In the penultimate game of the season, they put up a fight against the New York Knicks, but fell a bit short in the end. 48 minutes to go.

The opponent today has a lot going on. The Philadelphia 76ers have picked the right time to heat up, but they’re not out of the woods just yet. They won their seventh straight game on Friday night as they beat the postseason bound Orlando Magic. However, there’s a whole lot left to be determined about who lands where. We’ll get to that in a moment.

Where to follow the game

MY9 on TV. WFAN on radio. Tip after 1 PM.

Injuries

Ahem, the following Nets are out:

• Ben Simmons
• Dorian Finney-Smith
• Dariq Whitehead
• Keita Bates-Diop
• Cam Johnson
• Dennis Schroder
• Day’Ron Sharpe
• Jaylen Martin
• Dennis Smith Jr

Joel Embiid, De’Anthony Melton, and KJ Martin are questionable. Robert Covington is out.

The game

Philly won games one while Brooklyn captured games two and three.

The great thing about the last game of the season is contract incentives! When you have a chance to get some more money out of your bosses, you do what you can to hit your goal. We may not see players be as brazen as Moe Harkless was once upon a time, but who knows.

More importantly, there is playoff business to handle. It’s complicated as hell, so luckily the league office did us a solid

Looks complicated.

We’ve spent all season talking about players taking on roles that might be above their levels. When you’re best suited in one role, being thrust into another, more taxing one makes things more complicated. It’s what Mikal Bridges has had to deal with, and it’s been a bumpy ride for the six year veteran.

Now that he’s had a full year in this position, Nets management will have to figure out how to get the most out of their Ironman. Bridges only played 24 minutes in MSG, and with Kevin Ollie saying he wanted to lighten his workload, expect him to play even less this afternoon. Bridges might be playing for Team USA this summer, but if he’s not heading to Paris, he’ll have even more time to recharge his batteries in the hopes of bouncing back in 2024-2025.

Although no Net is in the running for any league title — Bridges two year reign the NBA’s minutes man will end — a big game from Cam Thomas could give him some bragging rights. He is currently No. 25 in scoring and is the second youngest player in the top 25. Cade Cunningham is less that two-tenths of a point ahead of Thomas at 22.7 a game and he’s not playing. Paolo Banchero is less than one -tenth of a point behind Thomas. So if you want to scoreboard watch, track Orlando’s game vs. Milwaukee, which also starts at 1:00 p.m..

In Philadelphia, the person who spent much of the year playing above his role is Tobias Harris. When Embiid went down with his knee injury, Harris went from third to second in the offensive pecking order. Safe to say, it did NOT go well. After a particularly terrible loss to the Knicks, All Philly’s Kyle Neubeck wrote:

“What is it that Tobias Harris does to help this team right now? He isn’t a consistent floor spacer, because he’s hardly willing to take threes in the first place. His bread-and-butter possessions in the mid-post have been a disaster lately, so he hasn’t been able to serve as a run-stopper when the going gets tough.”

Now that Nick Nurse and friends are heading to the postseason, they are going to need Harris to give them something close to star level play if they want to finally make it to the Eastern Conference Finals.

We get one more day to watch Cam Thomas work his magic. If all else fails, you know CT will go down shooting. He scored 41 points on Friday night and kept the ball moving with six assists as well. This summer, the Nets will have to decide how much they want to invest in Thomas as part of their retooling efforts. He’s certainly a fan favorite and a young player that is working hard to improve on all parts of his game.

The Nets will do their best to try and stop Tyrese Maxey. Maxey is one of the quickest guards in the sport and has a lightning quick first step. If he gets by you, you can just put two points on the board for the Sixers.

Player to watch: Joel Embiid

You know how everyone says you shouldn’t break in new shoes when you’re playing an important game. Clearly no one told Joel Embiid that since he’s breaking in an entire shoe line in the heat of a playoff race! When The Process returned in early April, he officially signed on with Skechers as his sneaker brand going forward. And if you thought playing in new shoes after a two month absence would slow him down, think again. In five games, the big guy is averaging around 30/9/5 on .495/.481/.878 shooting splits. Embiid can do just about everything on a basketball court, and his passing has taken a big step forward this year

Philly will need everything Embiid has in his arsenal if they’re to go far in the postseason. By the looks of it, their road to the Finals will be more treacherous than most. Maybe this time they’ll have enough to take that next step.

Nic Claxton will look to put on a good outing before he hits free agency this summer. The Nets have to decide how much they will invest in their young big and Clax will have to decide if he wants to remain in Brooklyn instead of moving to a new team. He’s done everything asked of him since he was drafted in 2019 and has grown into one of the best defensive big men in the NBA. He’s gradually added to his offensive repertoire and can still jump through the ceiling. On the roster side of things, figuring out what to do with him is at the top of the list for Sean Marks and friends. It would be in their best interest if they did everything they could to bring him back. You need good, young, homegrown players if you want to be a respectable team. Claxton checks all of those boxes for the Nets and is someone that the team prioritizes as they try to escape the purgatory they find themselves in.

From the Vault

We got some sad news on Saturday as Rico Wade from Organized Noize passed away at the age of 52. Atlanta has helped shape popular music for decades, and Organized Noize were a huge part of that.

In closing...

It’s been a tough season, but I appreciate everyone who’s made the time to follow and engage our work on the site! We do the best we can and I can’t thank everyone enough for reading, commenting, and pushing us to be better. This officially wraps up my tenth season writing for the site, and watching the community come together throughout this time has been a blast. While the Nets try to get their lives together, we’ll be covering the New York Liberty as they try to finish the story and win their first WNBA championship. We’ve got you covered on all angles and are excited to see how things develop from here.Libs open their season on May 14. See you on the other side!

More reading: Liberty Ballers, SB Nation NBA, Nets Republic, The Sixer Sense, All PHLY

• Brooklyn Nets Game Notes - Brooklyn Nets
• Philadelphia 76ers Game Notes - Philadelphia 76ers
• Brooklyn visits Philadelphia following Thomas’ 41-point showing - AP
• SIXERS MAKE FINAL PUSH FOR TOP-6 SEED, HOST NETS - Larry Fleisher - Field Level Media
• How the Nets can benefit from the Nic Claxton-Noah Clowney combination in a changing NBA ($) - Brian Lewis - New York Post
• Nets’ Mikal Bridges playing fewer minutes as long season winds down - Evan Barnes - Newsday
• NBA playoff picture: All the Sixers scenarios to skip the play-in tournament ($) - Rob Tornoe - Philadelphia Inquirer