Can Sixers Take Advantage After Magic Gift Them the East's No. 7 Seed?

The stakes were clear headed into Sunday.

Had the Sixers, Toronto Raptors and Orlando Magic all beat their comically undermanned opponents, the Raptors would have been the No. 6 seed, the Magic would have been the No. 7 seed and the Sixers would have been the No. 8 seed.

That did not unfold as expected.

Unsurprisingly, the Raptors took care of business against the Brooklyn Nets, who haven't been particularly interested in winning games all season. The Milwaukee Bucks put a brief scare into the Sixers—they were somehow up 62-58 at halftime despite being without all of their usual starters—but the Sixers put them away with a 38-16 third quarter and never looked back.

The Magic, however, were not so fortunate. They played with their food against the short-handed Boston Celtics and got caught with their pants down.

Desmond Bane played the first six minutes of the game and then did not return again until the fourth quarter. The Magic were up nine at halftime against a Celtics team without all five of its usual starters, but the Celtics reeled off a 42-20 advantage in the third quarter, and Orlando couldn't claw all the way back.

The Sixers will now host the Magic in the play-in tournament on Tuesday. If they win that game, they'll get to face the Boston Celtics in the first round of the playoffs. (Delightful.) If they lose, they'll face the winner of the Charlotte Hornets vs. Miami Heat game on Friday for the right to take on the Detroit Pistons in the first round.

The Sixers are likely drawing dead in either matchup without Joel Embiid, who remains sidelined after his surprise bout of appendicitis last week. Still, there's value in making the playoffs beyond just gifting the Sixers' owners a few games' worth of extra gate revenue.

As the Sixers look ahead to the Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe era, this year's playoffs could provide some valuable lessons.

Can the Sixers earn their way in?

The question is whether the Sixers have enough firepower sans Embiid to get through the play-in tournament.

Maxey is gutting his way through a finger injury, but he hasn't looked like an All-NBA guard in recent games. Edgecombe, Paul George, Kelly Oubre Jr. and Quentin Grimes are the Sixers' only other reliable scorers.

Orlando's size with Franz Wagner, Paolo Banchero and Wendell Carter Jr. could prove problematic without Embiid. If the Sixers lose to the Magic, they'll either have to take on the Hornets, who've been one of the NBA's hottest teams since the calendar flipped to 2026, or the Heat, who have routinely tormented them with their vaunted zone defense.

Either way, a playoff berth is nowhere near preordained. Luckily, the Magic gifted the Sixers home-court advantage in the 7-8 matchup with their loss to Boston on Sunday.

That loss should be a wake-up call to the Magic, although it might be too little, too late for them. They've barely had all five starters healthy at the same time this season, which has given them precious little time to develop chemistry with one another.

In a seven-game series, the Magic would likely trounce the Embiid-less Sixers. But the play-in tournament isn't a seven-game series. It's much more like the NCAA tournament, where an undermanned squad can flip the tables on its favored opponent due to sheer three-point shooting variance.

We'll have plenty of coverage between now and tipoff Tuesday about how the Sixers match up with the Magic, where they can take advantage of Orlando's weaknesses, etc. For now, the Sixers can rest easy knowing that they'll get to sleep in their own beds for the next two nights as they prepare to battle their way into the playoffs.