Are the Youngest Sixers Ready For Their First Taste of Postseason Basketball?

PHILADELPHIA — Adem Bona will walk into the gym the same time he always does on Wednesday night.

He will take his pregame nap as usual. His routine will not change. He appears a bit superstitious in that way.

"Changing your routine, I don't think that's a smart way to go about it," Bona told reporters on Wednesday morning.

You'd probably be a little superstitious too if the moment you've only ever fantasized about was hours away from becoming reality.

Bona understands he's being asked to fill a gargantuan hole left by Joel Embiid's absence. He's not taking that lightly.

"S--t, I'm really excited. I think I've been zeroing in on the opportunity that I have in front of me. The potential to play huge minutes in a Play-In game, I think that's really exciting. As a year-two player, that's a huge opportunity for me," Bona said.

"I think the main thing for me is the physicality. Try to impose our will, not let them push us around and stuff like that."

What's the preparation been like?

"I think it's more detail, more focus-based. Locking in on the little details. The little things that make a huge difference. Study the other teams a little bit more. So, just a little bit more intense, more focused, more details."

The cliché "attention to detail" has ruled the week in Sixer world. That's not a bad thing. It should rule every team's world come postseason time.

If the short-handed Sixers are going to have their best shot at clinching a true playoff spot against the seemingly-reeling Orlando Magic on Wednesday, they'll need Bona's attention to detail to outweigh his excitement for the moment.

He will have to defend with his feet on pick-and-rolls instead of using his core strength to keep ballhandlers at bay on hedges. He'll have to keep his eyes on the waist so that he doesn't get tricked into jumping at fakes when defending in space. Bona will have to keep his hands up and back, not forward.

Bona will have to control the urge to bat every shot at the rim into the fifth row, as chasing blocks will concede positioning for rebounds. The Sixers are not consistently good at helping the helper, dropping down to box out whoever slides in to Bona's rebounding space as he pursues the ball around the basket.

But it's OK to be excited. Why would you go this far if the prospect of playing postseason basketball didn't excite you?

"Pretty exciting, first postseason game. It's also exciting that we're playing at home. Get to do it in front of our fans. Also a great opportunity to make it to the playoffs. So, I'm pretty excited," Bona said.

He won't be the only young Sixer tasked with his first postseason responsibilities when the ball drops on Wednesday night.

Down an offensive focal point, the Sixers will need rookie sensation VJ Edgecombe to carry over the play he's offered for much of his first year in the NBA.

"It's amazing what VJ has done this past season. He plays with a confidence that, I don't know, maybe it's just the generation of kids that are coming up now," Andre Drummond told reporters after Sunday's victory over the Milwaukee Bucks.

Drummond sees the confidence and swagger that the league's youngest players have and it impresses him. Drummond remembers how timid he was when he first came into the league.

He wanted to fit in. He wanted everything to go as planned.

"With these guys now, it's just like, 'It's my show. I'm here to take over'. It's pretty dope to see what VJ has done this year and the games he's won for us. Just his confidence, man, I got to speak on the confidence. It's insane. And I love that for him," Drummond said.

Nick Nurse recently told reporters that, during an extremely short-handed stretch, Edgecombe would come out of timeouts and tell him, "We're going to go put this one away now. I'm going to make sure we put this one away".

That confidence has been there since day one. It will be a powerful variable in deciding whether the Sixers are the seventh seed or they have to play a do-or-die game on Friday for the eighth seed.

"First game, first practice. The day he walked in, he walked in like, 'I'm here'. We need that," Drumond said.

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