Kram Session: Joel Embiid’s Return and the NBA’s Playoff Seeding Scramble
The reigning MVP is back on the court for the Philadeplhia 76ers—and the Eastern Conference playoff picture just got a lot more interesting. Plus, we rank the 10 most important games left on the regular-season slate and examine the state of the 50-piece after the NBA’s offensive downturn.
Each Thursday of the NBA season, we’re analyzing a grab bag of topics from around the league. This week, we’re diving deep into the Philadelphia 76ers’ chances in the East with Joel Embiid back in the lineup, ranking the most important games left in the regular season, and examining the state of the 50-point game in the NBA’s evolving offensive environment. This is the Kram Session.
Under Review: What Joel Embiid’s Return Means for the Sixers—and the Rest of the East
For the Philadelphia 76ers, Tuesday night’s game against the Oklahoma City Thunder was a win regardless of the final score. Forget the team’s fourth-quarter comeback and the actual win for the standings—the real victory was the successful return of Embiid following knee surgery and a two-month absence.
The reigning MVP hadn’t played since January 30, when Warriors forward Jonathan Kuminga fell on his knee; this injury came after Embiid had been scratched from the 76ers’ two prior games under contentious circumstances. Philadelphia had the second-best record in the Eastern Conference when Embiid started missing games but has since fallen to eighth place amid a rash of injuries—not only to Embiid, but also to fellow All-Star Tyrese Maxey and steady guard De’Anthony Melton.
Embiid’s return, however, changes not only Philadelphia’s postseason outlook, but also the entire complexion of the Eastern Conference. Put simply, the 76ers without Embiid were not a legitimate threat to upset any of the East’s top teams and advance in the playoffs. Between Embiid’s last full game (on January 25 against the Pacers) and his return, the 76ers went 11-21 and ranked 23rd in net rating, with by far the worst margin among teams bound for the playoffs or play-in tournament.
But with Embiid, the 76ers are just such a threat. Embiid has famously never reached the conference finals, but there’s no doubt that he makes his team a much more formidable opponent with the capacity to advance that far, regardless of its playoff seed. The 76ers have a plus-9.9 net rating with Embiid on the court this season and a 27-8 record in games he plays (which, before Tuesday, didn’t include any games with midseason acquisitions Kyle Lowry, Buddy Hield, and Cameron Payne). That winning percentage is the best for any rotation player in the league who doesn’t play for the Celtics.
Highest Individual Winning Percentages in 2023-24 for Non-Celtics
If he hadn’t been injured, Embiid might have run away with his second straight MVP award. He has more points than minutes played, and according to the advanced stat estimated plus-minus, Embiid has been the NBA’s best player on a per-minute basis this season, ranking in the 99th percentile on both offense and defense. (EPM rates Embiid’s dominance so highly that it says he’s been more valuable in 35 games than All-NBA candidates Domantas Sabonis in 75 games, Rudy Gobert in 70, and Bam Adebayo in 64.)
Of course, much of Philadelphia’s potential to make noise in the playoffs is predicated on Embiid’s ability to perform at that MVP level, and it’s too early to say just how close he is to 100 percent form.
In his first game back, Embiid didn’t reach his typical standards for excellence. He attempted only 14 field goals, his lowest figure in a game all season. He struggled at times to navigate the Thunder’s swarming help defense, committing six turnovers next to his seven assists. He unsurprisingly looked fatigued throughout the game, leaving several jumpers short and on some occasions not even crossing half court as his team raced ahead in transition.
But even a lesser version of Embiid improved the 76ers immensely, especially in crunch time. He attempted 12 free throws (and made all 12) against the Thunder; the new officiating emphasis implemented during Embiid’s absence didn’t seem to affect one of the NBA’s premier foul drawers. He was a deterrent at the rim on defense and tallied three steals, including stripping Josh Giddey in a one-point game in the final 30 seconds. And he played 30 minutes, which is more than many players manage as they ease back into the rotation after such a lengthy absence.
Embiid’s late-game heroics keyed a crucial win for Philadelphia given its place in the standings. With Embiid, the eighth-seeded 76ers would be heavy favorites to emerge from the play-in tournament. But maneuvering their way up to the no. 6 seed would be ideal, not only because it would mean an automatic playoff berth and a more favorable matchup, but also because it would mean more time for Embiid and Maxey—who’s missed the past two games with hip tightness—to rest.
The 76ers trail the Heat and Pacers by 1.5 games apiece and would need to pass both to escape play-in territory. The league’s easiest remaining schedule will aid them on that quest. After a crucial game against Miami on Thursday—more on that in a later section!—the 76ers end the season with games against the Grizzlies, Spurs, Pistons, Magic, and Nets.
Even so, it’s not easy to pass two teams with so few games remaining, especially because both Indiana and Miami will likely win the tiebreaker over Philadelphia. (The Pacers already have, and the Heat have three fewer conference losses than the 76ers.) The Ringer’s NBA Odds Machine gives Philadelphia only a 7 percent chance to avoid the play-in.
But at the very least, the 76ers surely want to gain home-court advantage for the no. 7 vs. no. 8 game, which would increase the chances that they’d land the 7-seed for the playoffs—and thus likely face the vulnerable Milwaukee Bucks in the first round—rather than fall to no. 8 and face the Celtics.
Neither Milwaukee nor Boston would relish a meeting with Embiid as a reward for finishing with a top-two seed—though neutral observers would surely enjoy an early heavyweight clash, with the added excitement of the first playoff meeting between MVPs Embiid and Giannis Antetokounmpo. (Boston has clinched the no. 1 seed, and even after losing to the Wizards and Grizzlies this week, Milwaukee has a 59 percent chance to finish at no. 2, per the Odds Machine.)
The 76ers wouldn’t relish an early meeting with those Eastern powers either, but that’s what happens when a team’s brightest star and focal point on both ends misses half the season. To some extent, the 76ers are now playing with house money because of their rotten injury luck; any sort of success this spring would represent an improvement compared to their seeding.
But in the bigger picture, if they enter the playoffs with a healthy Embiid, the 76ers would have a lot at stake, too. The big man is now 30 years old and has only so many potential runs left while he’s at the peak of his powers. At this point, any season that doesn’t end in the conference finals represents another failure for the franchise. The 76ers can breathe a sigh of relief that Embiid has returned to the court with time to spare before the playoffs begin—but that just amplifies the pressure they’ll face between now and the season’s end.
Zacht of the Week: Are 50-Point Games Special Again?
When Jalen Brunson scored 61 points in a loss to the Spurs over the weekend, he didn’t just become the first Knick since Allan Houston in 2002-03 to record two 50-point games in the same season. Brunson also became the first player with a 50-point game since Stephen Curry reached 60 in early February, nearly two full months earlier. For context, Curry had been one of seven 50-point scorers in the span of just a couple of weeks.
That relatively lengthy stretch without a 50-point scorer coincided with changes to officiating and pace, which have affected individual scoring efforts in addition to leaguewide output. Before the All-Star break, there were 15 50-point performances in 820 games played, for a rate of about one per 55 games. Since the All-Star break, however, that rate has declined to one 50-point outburst per 106 games—a decline by nearly half!
Since Curry in early February, only Brunson, Devin Booker (52 points against the Pelicans this week), and Malachi Flynn (a shocking 50 points against the Hawks this week) have reached the half-century mark in a game. Such lofty point totals are rare and reflect a higher degree of difficulty once again.
Frequency of 50-Point Games in 2023-24
As the postseason approaches, this recent downturn yields a natural question: Should we expect fewer big individual scoring games in the playoffs?
Not necessarily. Since the start of the current leaguewide offensive explosion in 2016-17, 50-point performances in the playoffs have been more common than even the ridiculous pre–All-Star-break rate we saw this season. (Before 2017, they were much less common: There wasn’t a single 50-point game in the playoffs between Ray Allen’s 51 in triple overtime in 2009 and Russell Westbrook’s 51 in 2017.)
Over the past six postseasons, 50-point outbursts have come at a rate of one per 36 games—or one per 42 games, if we don’t include the high-offense bubble playoffs.
Frequency of 50-Point Games in Playoffs
High-scoring playoff games might seem less frequent just because there are fewer playoff games overall, so the raw number of 50-point playoff performances is lower. But even though defensive intensity ratchets up in the postseason, it makes sense that the 50-point frequency would rise, for two reasons.
First, the league’s best players, who are more likely to be able to score 50, are also more likely to reach the playoffs. And second, those better players stay on the court longer in the postseason: Since 2016-17, 50-point scorers in the playoffs over this span have averaged 43 minutes per game, versus 39 minutes per game for 50-point scorers in the regular season.
The 10 Most Important Games Left in the NBA Regular Season
With just a week and a half left in the regular season, let’s wrap up today’s Kram Session with a preview of the hectic scramble still to come. Here are the 10 most important remaining games on the regular-season schedule, which will dictate playoff and play-in seeds up and down each conference.
Note: Games on the final day of the regular season were excluded from consideration, because even though some might hold stakes for both teams—Milwaukee at Orlando? Phoenix at Minnesota? Dallas at Oklahoma City?—it’s more common that at least one contestant doesn’t treat Game 82 seriously and instead rests its stars for the playoffs.
76ers at Heat (Thursday, April 4)
If Philadelphia wants a chance to escape the play-in bracket, it needs to win in Miami. At the same time, if Miami wants to avoid the play-in, it probably needs to win this game, too. With three teams—this duo plus the Pacers—battling for just one top-six spot, any loss over the rest of the season could spell disaster.
The bad news for Philadelphia is that Embiid is still working his way back into game shape. The good news is that, as discussed above, if the 76ers beat the Heat, their schedule means they have a real chance to run the table the rest of the way, in which case they’d need only one additional Heat loss and two Pacers losses to grab the no. 6 seed.
Warriors at Rockets (Thursday, April 4)
Thanks to a five-game winning streak of their own and a two-game skid by the Rockets, the Warriors now have some breathing room at the bottom of the play-in standings. Houston had crept as close as half a game back, but now sits three behind Golden State as they enter a must-win meeting on Thursday.
Even if Houston wins this contest, the Warriors would still be heavy favorites to qualify for the play-in round, as they’d have a two-game lead and have already clinched the tiebreaker. But a Golden State win in Houston would push the Warriors four games ahead—effectively five with the tiebreaker—with only six games left for each team. That result would all but eliminate the Rockets from contention and guarantee the identities, if not the order, of the 10 Western teams moving on past Game 82.
Heat at Pacers (Sunday, April 7)
Miami’s regular-season schedule ends with a pair of easy wins: two home games against the tanking Raptors. But the Heat’s schedule is full of intrigue before then: After hosting Philadelphia, the Heat travel to Houston for the second night of a back-to-back, then fly to Indiana to face the Pacers in a crucial game for the Eastern Conference play-in race. An ESPN-televised game against the Mavericks comes soon after.
But Miami’s meetings against Philadelphia and Indiana are the most important in determining which member of that trio will avoid the play-in and which two teams will match up in the 7 vs. 8 game. The game against Indiana carries extra importance because its winner will also clinch the tiebreaker between the two teams; their only other meetings this season resulted in a split of a baseball-style series in Miami just after Thanksgiving. Put another way, Heat at Pacers essentially counts double in this race (either for the no. 6 spot itself or for home-court advantage in the 7 vs. 8 game, if the 76ers grab no. 6 for themselves).
Pelicans at Suns (Sunday, April 7)
Pelicans at Kings (Thursday, April 11)
Suns at Kings (Friday, April 12)
The Western Conference standings are a mess. Three teams are locked in a tight race for the no. 1 seed. (More on that in a moment.) The Clippers have the no. 4 seed to themselves. And then comes a giant jumble, as the Mavericks, Pelicans, Suns, Kings, and Lakers are all separated by just two games at most.
So I’m lumping three games together for one big discussion, even though it breaks chronological order. I think I’m justified in doing so, however, because the Suns, Pelicans, and Kings all have 31 losses—and they all happen to play each other in the coming days.
Phoenix is the hottest team of the bunch, with recent wins over the Nuggets, Pelicans, and Cavaliers. But the Suns have the hardest remaining schedule: They’ll need to keep beating strong opponents because their last six games are against the Pelicans, Kings, Timberwolves (twice), and Clippers (twice).
The Pelicans, conversely, are the coldest. Until today, they’d held the no. 5 or 6 spot every day since the All-Star break—but a three-game losing streak means they’re now in seventh place (technically tied for sixth, but losing the tiebreaker to Phoenix) and no longer assured of a playoff berth. New Orleans must arrest its slide soon and perhaps hope that Brandon Ingram can return from his knee injury to help stabilize a struggling offense that ranks just 17th in efficiency since he went down.
Finally, the Kings haven’t wilted despite injuries to a couple of key players, most recently Sixth Man of the Year candidate Malik Monk. Two big wins, including over the Clippers on Tuesday, have kept the Kings in the race to avoid the play-in, or at the very least avoid falling into the 9 vs. 10 game. But remaining games against the Celtics, Thunder, and Knicks—in addition to their closest competitors highlighted here—could stress Sacramento’s ability to keep pace.
In terms of tiebreakers, Phoenix has already clinched the season series over New Orleans, New Orleans has already clinched the season series over Sacramento, and Sacramento and Phoenix are tied 2-2, meaning their matchup next week is another that could essentially count double for seeding purposes. (Divisional opponents are normally scheduled to face each other four times apiece, but the Kings and Suns met in an extra game because of the in-season tournament.)
Warriors at Lakers (Tuesday, April 9)
Don’t give up on the Warriors’ chances of hosting the Lakers in a potential 9 vs. 10 play-in game just yet, even though the latter is one of the NBA’s hottest teams. The Lakers have 33 losses to the Warriors’ 34, meaning the teams would have the same number of defeats if Golden State wins this must-watch clash in L.A.—and because the Warriors are up 2-1 in the season series, they’d clinch the tiebreaker with a win here as well.
Golden State also closes with an easier schedule than the Lakers; of the Warriors’ six remaining games, three come against the Jazz (twice) and Trail Blazers. Meanwhile, the Lakers have only one already eliminated team on their remaining slate: L.A.’s final stretch against the Cavaliers, Timberwolves, Warriors, Grizzlies, and Pelicans means the Lakers could have a difficult time staving off the Warriors for ninth place, let alone moving up into the 7 vs. 8 game.
Magic at Bucks (Wednesday, April 10)
The inclusion of this game was a late audible: The Bucks should have wrapped the no. 2 seed up by now, but gobsmacking back-to-back losses to the Wizards and Grizzlies mean Milwaukee still has work to do. In the loss column, the Bucks are still two games ahead of the Cavaliers, Magic, and Knicks, so they’re favored to stay in second place in the conference, but their schedule down the stretch does them no favors: After a gimme against Toronto, Milwaukee closes against the Knicks, Celtics, Magic, Thunder, and Magic again on the last day of the season.
In other words: The Magic—the Magic! Who haven’t won more than 42 games in a season since Dwight Howard left!—have an actual chance to win the no. 2 seed, if they can beat Milwaukee twice in the last week.
The Magic have lower heights to aim for as well, as they’re one of three Eastern teams (along with Cleveland and New York) with 31 losses. Between that trio and Milwaukee, three teams will gain home-court advantage in the first round, with the top two gaining the added benefit of maneuvering to the non-Celtics side of the bracket.
Among those teams, Orlando has tiebreaker advantages on its side. Assuming that the Bucks remain in the no. 2 spot and the 31-loss Magic stay ahead of the 33-loss Heat, Orlando will win the tiebreaker in any scenario in which it finishes with the same record as the Cavaliers, Knicks, or both because of the advantage given to division winners in breaking ties. Cheers to the Southeast Division’s mediocrity! (If the Magic don’t stay ahead of the Heat, they wouldn’t have a chance to nab home-court advantage, anyway.)
Timberwolves at Nuggets (Wednesday, April 10)
Another three-team race arises at the top of the Western Conference, featuring the 23-loss Timberwolves, 23-loss Nuggets, and 24-loss Thunder. The most important note about this race to earn home-court advantage until the Finals is that Minnesota controls its own destiny, while Denver needs to win outright rather than finish in a tie.
The Timberwolves hold the tiebreaker over the Nuggets regardless of what happens in their final meeting: Minnesota is up 2-1 in the season series, and if the teams end up splitting 2-2, the next tiebreaker is division record, where Minnesota (12-3) has the advantage over Denver (8-6). And the Timberwolves also hold the tiebreaker over Oklahoma City because the teams split their season series, the Timberwolves cannot finish with a worse division record than the Thunder, and they have a better conference record.
Finally, Oklahoma City holds the tiebreaker over Denver, thanks to a 3-1 record in the season series. (Does it matter that the Nuggets are just 2-5 against the other top teams in the West this season? Perhaps not, but perhaps we shouldn’t assume the defending champs are guaranteed a repeat Finals trip just yet, either.)
Pacers at Cavaliers (Friday, April 12)
Finally, we’ll end on a game leading into the final day of the season. There were other possibilities for this spot, also scheduled for April 12—Magic at 76ers, Bucks at Thunder, Pelicans at Warriors—but Pacers at Cavaliers is certain to have seeding implications for both teams. It’s hard to know what to make of either team: Indiana has been mostly stuck in neutral since Tyrese Haliburton’s return from injury, while Cleveland has followed its 17-1 stretch with an uglier 11-15 mark since mid-February.
That uncertainty reflects the broader range around contenders’ positions in the standings, with only a handful of games still to play for each team. The Celtics are locked into the no. 1 spot, but just about everyone else is still fighting for home-court advantage, a playoff berth, or better play-in odds.
