OKC Thunder vs. 76ers – big positional advantage for home side

Key matchups:

This contest serves up another Most Valuable Player candidate in the form of Joel Embiid. The question is whether he’ll play since he has a sore knee and said he shouldn’t have played on Friday versus the Nets.

Couple that with backup big man Andre Drummond dealing with his own injury and it could play a major factor in this match today.

If either Embiid or Drummond plays it will be a tall task for the OKC Thunder youngsters to deal with. OKC isn’t a tall squad and doesn’t have a ton of frontcourt defensive depth to offset the size of either 76ers big men.

Outside of Embiid, there are other quality players the 76ers offer who will pose matchup issues for the Thunder. Tobias Harris is a borderline All-Star candidate who feasts under Doc Rivers. He averaged 19.5 points, 6.8 rebounds, 3.5 assists,  and shot 39.4 percent from deep. Without Simmons playing he’s needing to do more on both sides of the court and will pose a challenge for Darius Bazley to deal with.

Where there is an opportunity for the OKC Thunder to have an advantage is in the backcourt. Tyrese Maxey is handling the point guard duties with an undersized Seth Curry beside him. Both are listed as 6’2 on Basketball-Reference which we know isn’t true — if Curry is more than 5’11” I’d be surprised.

Either way, the 6’6″ SGA and 6’8″ Josh Giddey have the height advantage and should be able to turn that into easy buckets shooting over the 76ers guards and being pesky using their length on them defensively.