PHILADELPHIA — Long after the Philadelphia 76ers emerged with a comfortable 107-86 victory over the Brooklyn Nets in their season finale here at Wells Fargo Center, most of the 76ers roster was standing in the locker room watching the final moments of the New York Knicks-Chicago Bulls game a hundred miles up Interstate 95.
If New York won the game, it would clinch the second seed — and would be Philadelphia's potential first round opponent next weekend. If Chicago won, the Knicks would be third and the Milwaukee Bucks would clinch the second seed instead.
Ultimately, it was the Knicks who escaped with a thrilling 120-119 overtime victory after DeMar DeRozan's potential game-winning jumper went wanting. The 76ers — relegated to the play-in tournament close to an hour earlier by the Orlando Magic's 113-88 victory over the Milwaukee Bucks — will now shift their focus to Wednesday's 7-8 play-in game here against the Miami Heat.
«Obviously we've had some great battles with them, and we always expect that facing them,» 76ers coach Nick Nurse said after the win of the prospect of facing Miami. «The mindset is we're playing well and do everything we can, like we've been doing the last month of the year… digging in and playing our guys and doing whatever we have to, whatever we got to do to win.
»We've got a good mindset, and we'll take that into Wednesday."
While Philadelphia ultimately finished in a three-way tie with both the Magic and Indiana Pacers, who walloped the Atlanta Hawks Sunday, Orlando earned the fifth seed by virtue of wining the Southeast Division — the tiebreaker between the three teams.
Indiana then won the head-to-head tiebreak with Philadelphia thanks to winning the season series 2-1, and thus got the sixth
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