The Sixers malaise of late is not everything, but it's not nothing.
Related: Sixers: 5 reasons to be concerned heading into playoffs
This Sixers team has not earned the benefit of the doubt, this season as a team or separately as individuals, that they can simply flip a switch in the playoffs and beat any one of Toronto, Milwaukee, or Boston.
Yes, they're most likely locked into the third seed, unless they lose out. Yes, they have more "top end talent" than any other team in the Eastern Conference. But their starting lineup has played all of ten games together this year, there isn't a key player on the roster who has any sort of resume of playoff success, and the team has been substantially worse defensively this season compared to last.
All star players are not created equal, and just because the Warriors count "four stars" and the Sixers count "four stars," there should be no conflating those two situations. The Warriors have two of the four best players in the NBA among their stars, three MVP awards, three championships, and several seasons of cohesion. The Sixers have one player in the top ten, who coincidentally isn't even playing because the team decided to play him too much early in the season. Two players who just got here this year, and one of them about six weeks ago. None of them have been to the Conference Finals. The Warriors have the top end talent to make up for a not-so-top-end bench (which for all of its warts has a Finals MVP on it). We'll see soon enough whether the Sixers do, but my guess is they do not.
They've been significantly worse on defense this year, and there's not a ton of reason to believe that's going to change in the playoffs. Yes, everyone will likely try harder, but JJ Redick's days of being able to try his way to passable on defense are over. For all of Jimmy Butler's ability to add an element to the offense that they've missed, and that has been significant, the drop off from Robert Covington to Butler defensively has been drastic. Tobias Harris has been league average as a defensive player at his very best, and while Ben Simmons shows some excellent flashes and clearly has a very high defensive ceiling, he's nowhere near it.
It'd be easy to understand why as a human, it would be natural to take your foot off the gas if you're on this team right now. The team has all but admitted they're punting these games by sitting Embiid. The coach himself has said they're betting on the talent to pull them through because they won't have any cohesion. Butler and Harris, both unrestricted free-agents after this season, must have in the back of their minds that they have as much to lose by getting injured in a meaningless game as they have to gain by looking great.
But a human is one thing, and a champion is another. Every significant player on this roster should have something to prove, especially if they want to be considered as a title threat and among the league's elite. Three quarters of the league is ready to give up on Jimmy Butler as a star level player, Tobias Harris has been on five teams in eight years and never been on an All-Star team. While a lot of the criticism Ben Simmons has faced is unwarranted, he's never been out of the second round and his ability to lead a team as a primary ball handler who can't shoot jumpers or free throws is a fair thing to wonder about. Joel Embiid has been MVP level this year, but looked good against Boston in one game this year, hasn't been out of the second round, and again has an injury that is slowing him at a key time in the season. "Wait till you see us in the playoffs," sounds more like a question than a threat.
While the team's decision to trade for Butler and Harris mid-season was described as an attempt to maximize their current window of contention, history says that significant changes to an NBA roster in the middle of the season does not often result in playoff success. Talenting their way through the first round seems like a pretty safe bet, but much less safe when it comes to facing the talented and cohesive rosters of the rest of the conference's elite. While the last ten games of the year for the Sixers can't make up for lost time completely, you'd have to imagine using these games for something would be better than letting them slip away for nothing.
The Sixers have lost a couple of mostly-meaningless games to a couple of mostly-bad teams without their best player, it's not time for anyone to panic. But there's a world in between "caring at all" and panic, and this team is not in a point in its evolution where they can afford to live outside of that world.
