Expecting success has Sixers back on course

CAMDEN, N.J. » The 76ers have not been in the playoffs since 2012, when Markelle Fultz was 12, when Ben Simmons was 14, when Dario Saric was becoming a teen-aged basketball legend in Croatia.

What do they know about the time Julius Erving wind-milled on Michael Cooper, when Allen Iverson climbed over Tyronn Lue, when Charles Barkley used to troll the Boston Celtics with insults, some muffled, most not?

They can stroll past the ministatues of the franchise legends every day on their way into their training center, and they still might not know the real story they were planted there to tell: That their organization, too, once didn’t tank entire seasons.

So it was Thursday at a team dinner that Brett Brown was happy that it ended with a show. A big-screen TV was brought into the room, and some Sixers’ season highlights were shown, right up to Game 82, when Fultz went for a triple double.

“The game sort of speaks to you,” Brown said, after practice. “You go into it where I am going to try to do what we have been doing, then pivot out of it if I feel the need to.”

The first chance for that game-whispering will occur Saturday night at 8, when the Miami Heat visits the Wells Fargo Center for the Sixers’ first playoff game since 2012. Without Joel Embiid, who continues to recover from surgery on his left-eye orbital bone, Brown’s options will be fewer. They will not necessarily be limited.

Brown will start Amir Johnson at center until Embiid recovers. That could be an issue against roll-to-thebasket force Hassan Whiteside. With that, Brown’s pivoting could begin, with the

option to pair Ersan Ilyasova and Dario Saric in the front court, a unit that has proven highly successful.

All Brown knows is that he is not going to change things just because he no longer has to brush the snow off his car on his way to the game.

“I always have to remind ourselves that we have won 16 games in a row,” Brown said. “We are 25-and-1 at home since Christmas. We’re doing OK. And to try to over-think it, especially in Game 1, is not going to happen. And we’re going to take this slow and be mindful of what got us here, who we are, and just continue to do it, and do it, as I say, harder, better, longer.”

The Sixers and Heat split the four-game season series, each winning their home games. Without Embiid as a deterrent, Whiteside could be a handful. And veteran combo guard Goran Dragic, 32, had one

of his better seasons. Despite being slowed by a bruised knee, Dragic will play in Game 1.

With a young team, Brown is concerned about the experience of Miami, which can drag Dwyane Wade off the bench and expect at least some familiar Hall of Fame-level contributions.

“They played us hard this year,” J.J. Redick said. “They were physical with us, especially down in Miami. They run multiple actions on offense, so you really have to defend for the whole shot clock. They have a deep roster with a bunch of guys who play hard and play well together. It’s a huge challenge for us.”

For five years as the Sixers’ coach, Brown has sought a fast-paced offense, accurate ball-movement and precise three-point shooting. This season, he finally had the required personnel. And without Embiid

for the last eight games, the Sixers played even faster and shot even quicker.

With Redick, Marco Belinelli, Saric, Robert Covington and Ilyasova, the Sixers can be magical from beyond the arc. That depth, and their passing, will be a challenge to the older Heat. So it follows that Brown will be open to going deep on his bench, to present multiple backcourt looks and to go small when necessary. If that means going three deep at point guard, with Ben Simmons, Markelle Fultz and T.J. McConnell, he will do that too.

As he said, his team is doing “OK.” “The depth of the rotation, how many we play, that will evolve over the course of a series,” Brown said. “But to over-think it and try something that we really haven’t done, and we’ve had some recent success, would be a mistake.”