10 Games to Watch in 2013-14

Posted: August 6, 2013
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The NBA regular season is a marathon – 1,230 games in 169 days, almost 2,000 flights across four different time zones, and countless nights spent away from home for players, coaches, and trainers. In just under three months, the Sixers begin that grind all over again.
Tuesday, the NBA unveiled the schedule for 2013-14. Here, we take a look at 10 of the more intriguing games coming this season.

There is perhaps a no more exciting way to kick off a new era of Sixers basketball than with a home opener against the back-to-back defending champion Miami Heat. The league’s undisputed heel since “The Decision” in the summer of 2010, the Heat look to join the Celtics, Lakers, and Bulls and become just the fourth team in NBA history to accomplish a championship three-peat.
In 11 regular season meetings since LeBron James and Chris Bosh joined Dwyane Wade in South Beach, the Sixers have yet to beat the Heat. With three games against one another this season and the looming potential of a Big Three breakup next summer (Lebron, Wade, and Bosh all have early termination options next season), this could be one of the Sixers’ last opportunities for revenge.
Fun Fact: The Sixers opened the 2010-11 season with a home game against the Miami Heat. That game, a 97-87 Sixers loss, was the first win of Miami’s “Big Three” era. It was also the debut of then-rookie Evan Turner, who posted 16 points (7-10 FG), 7 rebounds, and four assists in 31 minutes off the bench.

One of the most exciting teams in the league last season, the Warriors made a splash this offseason, acquiring former Sixer swingman Andre Iguodala in a sign-and-trade deal with the Denver Nuggets. The move added a top-level defender to a perimeter group that includes two of the best three-point shooters in the league – guards Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson.
In the playoffs last season, the Warriors defeated the Nuggets in the first round of the playoffs, notching just their second series win since 1991. In the Western Conference Semifinals, they took the eventual Conference Champion Spurs to six games, but fell short of upsetting San Antonio.
Fun Fact: The last time these two teams met, in a 104-97 Sixers victory on March 2 of this year, Curry and Thompson combined for 59 points 22-of-38 shooting. Forward David Lee contributed 13 points and 16 rebounds while his counterpart Thaddeus Young did one better, scoring 14 points to go along with his career-high 16 rebounds.

Beginning last offseason, Houston underwent a dramatic transformation. The additions of point guard Jeremy Lin and center Omer Asik through free agency, and James Harden through a trade with the Thunder, breathed new life into their franchise. The Rockets won 45 games last season, their most since 2008-09, and took the Oklahoma City Thunder to the wire in the opening round of the playoffs before getting knocked out on their home floor in Game Six. This summer, the Rockets signed prized free agent Dwight Howard, adding the three-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year to a team that finished second in the league in scoring last season (106.0 points per game).
Fun Fact: To illustrate just how much has changed for Houston in the last year and a half, let’s take a look back at their roster during the 2010-11 season. On March 30, 2011, the Sixers’ final meeting Houston before their period of roster turnover began, 11 players logged minutes for the Rockets: Kyle Lowry (TOR), Kevin Martin (MIN), Chase Budinger (MIN), Luis Scola (IND), Chuck Hayes (SAC), Patrick Patterson (SAC), Courtney Lee (BOS), Goran Dragic (PHX), Jordan Hill (LAL), DeMarre Carroll (ATL), and Mike Harris (UFA). That’s right. When not a single player who represented the Rockets in that game is still on their roster.
The Sixers won 108-97.

The Indiana Pacers were one of the league’s more surprising playoff performers last season. After winning a Central Division that was weakened by the absence of former MVP Derrick Rose, the third-seeded Pacers topped the sixth-seeded Hawks in six games and then went on to do the same to the second-seeded Knicks. To the surprise of most, who expected the Pacers to fizzle out against a far more talented Miami Heat team in the Eastern Conference Finals, Indiana managed to force a Game Seven in Miami, but fell 99-76 to end their Cinderella run.
Fun Fact: This is the first season since 2009-10 in which the Sixers and Pacers have not faced one another four times; they play three times this season.

The Knicks had a quiet offseason, with the retirement of Jason Kidd and the signing the amnestied Lakers forward Metta World Peace serving as their only substantial roster transactions. But regardless of who’s on the floor for the Sixers and Knicks, it’s always a battle when the two teams meet.
Fun Fact: Last season, Evan Turner played some of his best basketball against the Sixers’ two biggest rivals, the Knicks and Celtics. In eight combined games against them, he averaged 18.1 points, 8.1 rebounds, and 4.6 assists.

As has become an annual tradition in the NBA, Martin Luther King Day will feature a full slate of games that begin in the early afternoon and end in the late evening. This year, the Sixers travel down I-95 to face the Washington Wizards. The game, which starts at 2PM, will be one of just two day games played by the Sixers this season (the other is a December 1 Sunday road game in Detroit).
Fun Fact: With the exception of the lockout-shortened 1998-99 season, the Sixers have played on MLK Day every season dating back to 1995-96. The last time the team played Washington on the holiday was in 2006.

Like the Sixers, the Celtics have undergone sweeping changes since the end of the 2012-13 season. Just hours after Philadelphia acquired the rights to rookie Nerlens Noel and a first-round pick in 2014 from the New Orleans Pelicans, Boston completed a deal with the Brooklyn Nets in which they received multiple picks and expiring contracts in exchange for Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Jason Terry, and D.J. White.
With each team featuring an overhauled roster, this game, the first between the two this season, will be the first of a new era of the Sixers-Celtics rivalry.
Fun Fact: January 27 is the latest the Sixers and Celtics have ever had their first meeting in a season, excluding the lockout-shortened 1998-97 and 2011-12 seasons. When this game is played, the Sixers will have already faced each of their three other Atlantic Division opponents multiple times– the New York Knicks twice, the Brooklyn Nets twice, and the Toronto Raptors three times.

After falling to the Memphis Grizzlies in a surprising second-round playoff upset, the Thunder will look to make another run at the Larry O’Brien Trophy. The team appeared destined for a Conference Finals meeting with the San Antonio Spurs, but after All-Star point guard Russell Westbrook tore his lateral meniscus in Game Two of the second round, Oklahoma City was simply not the same team; they failed to win a game in the series after Westbrook’s injury.
Fun Fact: Since making his NBA debut in 2009-10, Thunder forward Serge Ibaka has blocked more shots (778) than any player in the league. Kevin Durant is third in the league in scoring since making his debut in 2007 (12,258 points), sitting behind only Kobe Bryant (12,321 points), and LeBron James (12,642) during that stretch.

Simply put, the San Antonio Spurs will not go away. Since drafting 14-time All-Star Tim Duncan in 1997, the team has not finished a season with fewer than 50 wins (with the exception of the lockout-shortened 1998-99 season, in which only 50 games were played by each team) and has won four championships; they were five seconds away from taking home their fifth, but were thwarted by the three-point hand of Ray Allen. Duncan (37) and longtime sidekick Tony Parker (31) show no signs of slowing down, but with a good deal of wear on their tires and just two years remaining on their contracts, this could be one of the last times we get to see the Sixers face off against a prime Parker and Duncan.
Fun Fact: Over the last two seasons, the Spurs are 14-2 against Atlantic Division opponents. Both losses came at the hands of the New York Knicks in 2011-12.

This year’s Nets squad figures to be one of the league’s most intriguing. With the addition of Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, and Andrei Kirilenko, Brooklyn is now one of the most experienced teams in the league, featuring eight players with eight or more years of NBA experience. The team also hired legendary point guard Jason Kidd to serve as the team’s head coach in place of interim head coach P.J. Carlesimo. The hiring of Kidd came just 10 days after he announced his retirement as a player. Come April, it will be interesting to see how far the Kidd has come in terms of building chemistry and finding unique ways to maximize the talent on his roster.
Fun Fact: With Deron Williams, Joe Johnson, Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Brook Lopez, Andrei Kirilenko, and Jason Kidd (head coach) on board, the Nets have a combined 46 All-Star appearances on their roster.





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