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Report: The Milwaukee Bucks will host the Philadelphia 76ers to start NBA 2023-24 campaign
The Milwaukee Bucks will open their NBA 2023-24 season campaign with a gigantic showdown versus the Philadelphia 76ers.
The duel between the two Eastern Conference heavyweights will be on October 26th at the Fiserv Forum, according to a report by Shams Charania of The Athletic.
The league has yet to release the next season’s official schedule, but Charania has already reported some of the key games next season that, includes Milwaukee’s Christmas Day showdown with the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden.
Battle of the bigs
For their season opener, the Bucks and the Sixers will be once again led by their respective key big men.
The match-up will feature Giannis Antetokounmpo and Joel Embiid. Antetokounmpo, Embiid, and the Denver Nuggets Nikola Jokic were the frontrunners in last season’s MVP race.
Embiid eventually won the most-coveted award courtesy of 73 first-place votes, while Jokic received 15 first-place votes, and Giannis got 12.
Contrasting playoff runs
Both reaching the 50-win mark, Milwaukee and Philadelphia had a stellar regular season run the past season, with the Bucks finishing first (58-24) and the Sixers third (54-28) in the EC.
It can be recalled that the Bucks put up their second-longest winning streak in franchise history last season when they racked up 16 consecutive wins.
It was the Sixers who ended the streak as Milwaukee fell four straight wins short of matching the franchise’s longest streak.
Philadelphia had a better playoff campaign that saw them reaching the East semifinals before losing to the second-seeded Boston Celtics (57-25) in Game 7.
Milwaukee ranked No. 1 in the postseason, had a forgettable playoff run, as they failed to get past the first round after losing to the eighth-seeded Miami Heat in what was the biggest upset in recent NBA history.
