The Sixers Face Another Big Test...

The Sixers are about to face their biggest test of the season, our first of the back-to-backs. We've got to talk about who's in, who's out, what the lineup's going to look like, and get you ready for all things Game 4 against the Detroit Pistons. What's going on, everybody? Christian Pedersen back with another episode of Sixers Digest, the show where Sean and I are bringing you daily content. Sean does the nuanced basketball analysis, and I'm just the internet clown that over and under reacts to all things. And I said that yesterday was a brutal watch, and I kind of, like, I stand by it, But I also get that it's three games into the season, and sometimes I'm a little bit hyperbolic, so sorry if I missed the mark on some of that. That being said, Game 4, it's the biggest game of the season, given that every game is going to be the biggest game of the season as we go through this until they finally lose one. But tonight is going to be the first major test, if you will, given that on this back-to-back between the Bucs and the Pistons, they elected to play Embiid last night, so he is going to be resting tonight. the injury report is out he is out for right plantar fasciitis management i don't consider that to be an injury he is just uh he's out for management so LeBron is back he is not listed on here Don Barlow and Taco Fall still about six days away from their injuries being re-evaluated Jabari Walker is an interesting addition to this Nick Nurse did not really have much for us to go on about what this knee injury is obviously thoughts and prayers for the guy this does certainly though like i said this is going to be an interesting test biggest test of the season if you will given that this would be the game for what we drew up in the offseason where Acorti and Bona and LeBron and Don Barlow are all kind of splitting the center role of that group Huck Porty and Barlow not available LeBron will be available so assume that he is going to start at the five and that Dean Wade is also going to get a start tonight but it's gonna have to be more minutes from Adam Bonas so just in general holistically speaking it is going to be a huge question on the other side matchup wise the sixers are getting a little bit of a break given that Jalen Duran is out for at least two weeks so not like a questionable but is going to play kind of thing he's out out and then Ausar Thompson is going to be questionable game time decision type five so that being said this the pistons um still a good team made a run i don't want to disrespect them and all that but they will be without their starting center so paul reed is going to get those reps behind him and that to me it's i don't like i don't want to say that that is going to make this an invalid sample size of what the Embiid thing looks like just it is going to be extremely interesting to see given that Embiid obviously balled out last night has himself a triple double has played huge minutes every game just structurally speaking the team is going to look different and maybe that means that LeBron plays 30 plus and Dean Wade plays 30 plus and that really, honestly, we only get, again, 10 minutes of Adem Bona, 20-something minutes of KCP, 20-something minutes of Anfernee Simons, four minutes of LeBron Phylen, and do another nine-man rotation. If that's what it is, or if this is 20 minutes of Adem Bona and 10 minutes less of LeBron, we just don't know. So it's going to be answering a bunch of questions about what is really Nick Nurse's plan to do this. And the Sixers have the least number of back-to-backs in the entirety of the NBA this year. So thankfully, this isn't something where we're going to have to be having this all of the time. It's just going to be an interesting question to follow. That also being said, I thought this was an interesting quote of Embiid last night saying that he wants to play tomorrow. and then he told the press to start writing articles and put pressure on the team so they let me play. This could be tongue-in-cheek. This could be him just feeling good at the beginning of the season. But whatever the level of seriousness is behind this, I love to hear this. I think that this is something that reflects a locker room that is fired up and excited to be going to work every day and is, you know, whether this is just LeBron inspiring everybody or is Nick Nurse, I don't care who is inspiring this, I don't care what started this fire but the team this year seems to have their heads really on straight and i absolutely love it looking just kind of at the numbers to get you guys ready for tonight's game if you go to digest sports.com you can check all of these cool graphics out our coders are working overtime to make the site look pretty this will also i think just be a further test of this year's Sixers dog versus data is the new way that i want to try and describe it numerically speaking we are not as good as this the pistons on quite a number of things better in the steals less turnovers but we are trailing in points we're trailing and shooting trailing all the red up there on that board i get that it's a smaller sample size but that's where this team we're trailing these guys in everything so matchup wise just if you guys want the empirical um statistical by the book analysis and not me being a uh an over reactionary goof on the internet i would say got our work cut out for us and that would even be with our starting five including Joel Embiid but it's not going to include Embiid so it is going to be just a lot of different layers of challenge but opportunity at the same time where if we're looking kind of on the positive i think that this is a great spot to be in in our first of the back-to-backs we yes we spent the Embiid bullet last night but got the win three and zero know we've won on the road we won at home we had the massive comeback we've answered a lot of the chemistry and other questions like that the national narratives we're trying to push about this and we've shown that this team has uh you know that i said that dog in them but also has kind of the formula figured out for how the flow works and who's going to be taking what roles and it's all really coming together a lot quicker than i think um the average fan or media member was expecting all of this to come together so that being said this is not something where we're not the heat we're not oh and three going into the back and back desperately we need to like oh my gosh let's start panicking or anything like that so we are in a good spot that kind of no matter what happens tonight the positives that we can take away is that we learned more and more and more about what this is all going to look like that being said it's not fantastic to have Jabari Walker's injury meaning just a little bit less depth in terms of people that can be in the center position so you know i'll i'll touch base with you guys all again on the post-game reaction video but it's going to be something where there will i think be some opportunity to shine some actual light on what some of our shortcomings might be and to see if that's something that Nick Nurse, Ron Maxi and all those guys can figure out a way to overcome in terms of just like play a different little bit of a lineup different style of offense different this that or the other or if this is going to be something where there is really like okay we have to have an uncomfortable conversation about December rolling around and us finding somebody at the center position to go out and get to augment and supplement this lineup all that being said no matter what it's going to be a blast to have game four in the books for us all to watch like subscribe comment share follow all those other youtube buttons until next time go sixers have a great rest of your night and talk to you after the game