The Sixers are Back in Action...

The Sixers are getting back into action. We've got to take on the Indiana Pacers after a couple of days off to rest, recover, get our center back, get our center of balance back, get the center of the team back. What's going on, everybody? Christian Patterson back with another episode of Sixers Digest, the show that is welcoming you back to game day vibes as the Sixers get set to take on the Indiana Pacers. As always, if you want to like, subscribe, comment, share, follow, we've got daily content for you, Sean and I, all season long, pre-, post-game, and everything in between. what are you thinking are we about to go four and one i say yes i say yes for a bunch of different reasons let's break them all down on this episode i think that for me the main match the main thing in this game is going to just be the get back the bounce back the we had a couple of we did the rest thing it didn't turn out well we gotta a show our mentality but i'm not i don't even question the dog factor of this team anymore because they got it in them i just am curious how focused they can be and you know sort of got the four games out of the way and now it's you had your first time to really rest recover start to focus on things as we talked about in yesterday's injury video we got VJ back into full practice taco falls into full practice i'll be curious to see just who all gets involved in this one assuming it's not going to be Nick Nurse all of a sudden flipping the switch and going like super deep into the bench but does it just go back to the starting five playing 30 plus minutes and then a smattering of small bench very curious as we start like i feel like after that first sprint of games we're now kind of slowly starting to get into like what's going to be the rhythm and the flow of this team for the sixers in case you're still playing who he play for this season this is what their starting lineup is supposed to be looking like but it is not what you are going to be seeing most likely on your television screens or your phone screens or uh wherever you the tin cup and a wire that you listen to the game through I don't know why I just assumed you'd be watching this on the screen I'm very millennial of me but the injury bug has bitten them a couple of guys out allegedly for this one Haliburton Zubac few different guys questionable few different guys for sure out so again the Pacers not at a hundred percent and we've I feel like we've seen this narrative before of us saying oh Jalen out and or this guy that no I'm not going to discount it and say oh my gosh the you know the Pacers are toast if you look through the numbers and some of you will still say oh it's only four games you can't look at all the numbers yet I you know what these numbers are on our website I think our website is cool I'm gonna go buy the numbers because they give me the pretty little greens and reds to talk about and you know this is a better matchup in terms of what we've had so far this season of just going into it the Sixers being better than our opponent at several different categories the huge jump in steals and the significant less turnovers I think are a fantastic early indicator for me in terms of what I'm looking at is a favorable matchup overall the the rebounding I think is going to be again the biggest question of every game that we have all season long or at least like the first 10 to 20 games assuming that like I said Embiid is back and back at a full clip and that we're not having to ask LeBron to live out his nightmare of playing center tonight I would say that this is going to probably be us continuing to trend in the right direction and have better rebounding and progressively more and more of those stats starting to level out in the right direction but like I said I'll be really curious if Nick Nurse we haven't had a game yet where the Sixers have had like a comfortable controllable lead and i will be curious if this is one where they can get up in the you guys will probably disagree with me and say well what what about the Bucks they really that was not a comfortable one they kept fighting that one back but if the Sixers can get up a dozen in the second quarter or something early like that i will be curious if that's when we start to see the rotational center you know give Embiid some rest time bring out it's gonna be Taco Fall i bet we don't see Taco until this weekend with the second leg of that back-to-back i think that he is still nursing a degree of a hip injury despite being a full participant in practice Dom Barlow still out it's good so it's gonna be a Dembona and it's probably not Jabari Walker so do we see a Dembona get a chance i if this is me hypothetically saying let's get a lead I want to see a Dembona for 15 to 20 non-necessary minutes but just chance for him to be out there with the main cast of characters in control of the game in terms of us like actually getting a feel for I think we've kind of done Jekyll and Hyde on the rebounding of we got the main group out there and it's like oh okay we got out rebounded a little bit but it wasn't out of hand and then we had the oh my gosh LeBron was starting at center and Barlow or and uh a Dembona backing up for like you know 15 minutes and it just all all out of the all out of whack let's get something in the middle just to see what that game looks like i'd like to speak that into existence another thing that i really want to try and speak into existence is the improvement of the shooting numbers this team for as good as we have looked i talked about this after our last after our loss of i'm optimistic because we've been in every game but despite being in every game our shooting numbers are actually not that elite yet and i say yet because i do thoroughly and wholeheartedly believe that this team is overwhelmingly capable of producing fantastic numbers i just we just it's four games in we're getting the rust off we're getting in the rhythm sometimes maxie's going eight sometimes jalen brown's missing some something i don't know if you guys want to pick or choose a one that you are most worried about points in the paint maybe that is a reflection of a lack of the center spot mid-range could go nice different corners i think that that's just an interesting breakdown statistically that is probably going to level out the fast break three just all of these numbers need to and will i believe thoroughly trend up this is a great game to have an opportunity to get them trending up i think that it's probably bad luck for me to come on here and be like i'm predicting the Sixers we're gonna blow out this team or that we're gonna be way ahead so i'm not gonna get into that minutiae but i do want to say that this feels like uh coming off of a couple of days of rest being upset about how the game went against the pistons i gotta assume that this team has some fire but also has it under control a little bit more and is into their rhythm and routine plus i'm just going to be also really curious about the bench and optimistic about getting like i said to see more of them in action so let me know what you think of just the totality of all this analysis but what do you like what are you hoping for tonight is there a I need Maxi for 30 points or minutes wise i need to see LeBron filing for 10 i need us to get a lead early and maintain it like where is your threshold for what you need to see out of the Sixers coming off of this situation. A disastrous loss after a great week of games. And now there's some rest and recovery, but heading back into a couple of games between tonight and then Friday and Saturday. It's a nice little run. Plus, we got the NBA Cup, we got the Knicks again. So this one, they got a nice little tune-up for all that. So let me know what you think. Like, subscribe, comment, share, follow, all those other YouTube buttons. Until next time, we'll talk to you after the game. Go Sixers. Have a great rest of your night.