NBA Playoffs: Sixers, Nets Game 1 to be played Saturday
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- With the Philadelphia 76ers capping off the regular season Sunday, it's now time for some playoff basketball.
For the second time in the past four years, the Sixers and Brooklyn Nets will face off in the first round of the NBA Playoffs. Game 1 is scheduled for Saturday at 1 p.m. at the Wells Fargo Center in South Philadelphia.
The rest of the playoff series hasn't been announced yet. The NBA said in a tweet more details about the rest of the postseason schedule will be announced once they're finalized.
#NBAPlayoffs First Round, Game 1 dates.
— NBA Communications (@NBAPR) April 9, 2023
More information will be provided as it is finalized. pic.twitter.com/sBcjzZVLKq
The Sixers and Nets played each other four times in the regular season and Philadelphia won every game. But only two of those games happened after the Nets dealt Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant ahead of the trade deadline, including Sunday's regular season finale where both teams rested their starters.
In the one game where both teams were at full strength, the Sixers edged the Nets, 101-98, on Feb. 11 in Brooklyn. Joel Embiid had 37 points and 13 rebounds, while James Harden poured in 29 points in his first game in Brooklyn since the trade involving Ben Simmons that landed him in Philadelphia.
Simmons won't play in the postseason after the Nets ruled him out for the remainder of the season with a nerve impingement in his back.
The Sixers are heavy favorites to win the series.
The series will be a chance of revenge for Nets' forward Mikal Bridges, a former Villanova product and Philadelphia native who graduated from Great Valley High School in Malvern.
Bridges, who was dealt to Brookyln in the trade that sent Durant to the Phoenix Suns, was originally drafted No. 10 overall by the Sixers in the 2018 NBA Draft.
But, he was traded by his hometown team to the Suns in exchange for the draft rights to Zhaire Smith and a 2021 first-round pick that was eventually used to acquire Sixers forward Tobias Harris the following season.
Bridges has emerged as Brookyln's go-to guy, but he would need to go nuclear every game in order to pull off an upset vs. the Sixers.
Since he was acquired by Brooklyn, Bridges has averaged 27.2 points, 4.7 rebounds and 2.8 assists per game in 26 games.