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I wrote a lot yesterday about how well I remember Sixers-Celtics 2023, so let me start my remembrance of its 2026 mirror reverse with a moment I recall just as vividly as anything from the game itself: Talking to my mom on the phone after. My mom is the person I’ve shared the most Sixers memories with over the past decade — an honor she should share with my dad, but, well — and the person who I can most rely on to be as psychotic about the Sixers as I am; there was no question after a shitshow meltdown like that, the first thing I would have to do was call her and essentially apologize to her on the Sixers’ behalf for her ruined Mothers’ day. We broke down the game and how crushed we were about every part of it and how disappointed my dad would be and how much we hate the fucking Celtics, but how glad we at least were to have one another to split the misery with. I told her I loved her, and I really did.

Last night, of course, the first thing I did after the game was to call my mother. Well, actually, the first thing I did was to break down sobbing in Lisa’s arms, 13 years of built-up emotion being purged from my body seemingly at once — usually during big Sixers games she’ll be doing whatever in our apartment, tuning me out as much as she can until greeting me with a celebration or consolation hug once it’s over, but this time I actually called her over for the emotional support I sensed I would need during the final minutes. But after that, I called Mom, so we could have the conversation we had after 2023, and really after every Sixers playoff run since 2018, but finally from the other side. We broke down the game, and how insane it was that it unfolded how it did, and how proud we were of our guys for once and how happy my Dad was about it somewhere and how much we still hate the fucking Celtics. I told her I loved her, and I really did.

It’s Sunday morning, and the Sixers have still come back from down 3-1 to beat the Boston Celtics in the playoffs. And there’s more basketball still to come. What a world to be waking up to.

I knew there was a chance we would win yesterday, a real one, but if you had given me 10 guesses to how the game generally would go, I doubt I would have predicted this particular script. Maybe just because the Sixers won big in their three Ws in this series to that point, and seemingly have lost every big close game to the Celtics in the last decade — though in truth, there have been some major exceptions there — I assumed a win last night would also have to be a relatively comfortable one. And a couple times, it looked like that was exactly what we would get: After speeding out to a double-digit lead in the first quarter and then ballooning it back to 18 towards the end of the third, a never-in-doubt finale seemed an entirely possible outcome. But both leads got quickly termited into by the Celtics after, and the fourth quarter was close enough to hear yourself breathing throughout its final minutes. “Comfortable” was not the word for it.

And yet, I really did think they would pull it out. I wouldn’t be so arrogant as to say I knew; the air was certainly thick with collapse, there was definitely still a world in which the Celtics hit a pair of dagger threes in the final minute as the Sixers crumpled in the half-court and my buckling into Lisa lasted 10 times as long, with 20 times the tears. But... I just thought the Sixers were the better team. Not that that always matters, not that the Sixers haven’t had bigger losses to lesser teams, but despite a couple decisive Boston momentum runs in the second and fourth, for the first time in the history of Sixers-Celtics, I watched most of that game thinking man we got these guys. Would that for sure save us from the random cruelty of the Basketball Gods? Not necessarily, but it did feel like something.

Boston never even took the lead back in that fourth quarter. Lord knows they had chances, good looks, shots so open I had to cover my eyes with my hand and find out what happened from the crowd reaction. But it just wasn’t going to be their night; it was that lid-on-the-lead game that’s tortured us so often throughout the past decade, this time with the Sixers keeping the damn thing shut. We’d just need a couple buckets late, and we got ‘em. Game over. Series over. Sixers somehow not over.

There’s a lot of best parts of all of this, but the one I come to first and foremost is that the end of the day — well, the end of this day, though again, we actually got more days to come now — we really needed both Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey. As he has for the last decade, Joel was the guy to drag us to the finish line, playing brilliantly and giving us everything and alternately reflecting our collective elation and frustration with every make or miss. But as he also has for the last decade, he did need to help to get us over that line, which as you no doubt recall, he hasn’t always gotten in the playoffs. Last night, he got it from Tyrese, his co-anchor, his one true co-star. When Jo’s body finally said no más late in the fourth, Tyrese asked for the clearout and got the two biggest buckets of his career (non-Ben Stiller division). Just a couple of Sixers bros putting up 30-10-5s in an elimination game on the road to make history, seal the 3-1 comeback and then wear dark sunglasses to the post-game press conference, no big deal. The dudes. Our guys. What a relief.

The other best best part is the people who come out of the woodwork to celebrate with us. Like no doubt thousands of Ricky folks, I got hit with a barrage of texts and social media messages after the win last night from people in my orbit, some of whom I’ve talked Sixers shit with for a decade or longer, some of whom I didn’t even realize that I was the main Sixers guy in their orbit. And then just like the 2023 Sixers’ Chernobyl impression allowed all the ghosts from Process past to hit us with a drive-by haunting, who should show up to .gif it up with us in celebration but fucking Sam Hinkie? The architect? The guy who’s gone so Sixers radio silent in the past decade that if he had secretly died during COVID, news about it might not have even gotten to us yet? Those are the moments that make all this hardest to believe, but also the moments that make it feel the most real.

It’s all so much that you do have to stop and remind yourself every so often that it’s still only the first round of the playoffs, that we haven’t even gotten to the Sixers’ most historically infamous save point of the postseason yet. We’ll worry about that tomorrow, or maybe later today, and we’ll be glad to get to stress about it. But the fact that everyone is popping out over this, the fact that r/Bill Simmons has essentially turned into Reddit Mardi Gras, the fact that ESPN used the verb “vanquish” in their headline about the Sixers winning this series, shows that we all sorta get the significance of this series win. Clown on us for going too hard over a narrow first-round victory if you want, and if you’re one of the many many NBA franchises who’s actually put a Conference Finals appearance in the books over the past quarter-century, you certainly have every right to. But we won’t be shamed for this. This is our Pathetic Super Bowl, and we will absolutely celebrate it like it’s the real thing. We deserve to.

And as Spike and I both concluded yesterday, we really, really, really needed that W. I was actually proud of myself that at no point during the game did I start doing the Electric Hedge, trying to boogie-woogie-woogie my way to convincing myself that even if they lost, hey it was a good loss and we should feel nice and maybe next year we can all go live in a cabin together and just hold hands and sing songs and eat berries and talk to the squirrels about how things are gonna feel different with the team this season. Nope: At any point last night, a win would have been 24 Hour Party People and a loss would’ve been Drag Me to Hell and there were no shades of Sixers Grey in between. Maybe that’s what got us through for once: I guess it’s much easier to run all the way past the finish line when you’re really not saving a single ounce of energy for the trip back.

I also mentioned yesterday that the 2023 Celtics loss permanently turned my Sixers fandom a different color. I worried it was one that would get even uglier after last night. I didn’t really consider the possibility that last night would have a similarly indelible effect on my Process Trusting in an actually positive way. But I can already feel that it has: My relationship with this team is cast in an entirely new light after last night, reshading and reshaping not just my perception of them in real time, but all my past memories of them, end-of-Inside Out style. Even 2023 doesn’t seem quite so bad anymore: It was just another stop on the team’s journey to winning, not the final word on its character and worthiness. Maybe it really was just James Harden’s and Doc Rivers’ fault all along. Maybe it was Tobias’.

Honestly, there’s always been a part of me that’s been worried that winning a series like this wouldn’t feel good enough. Most of us true sports sickos hate losing more than we really love winning. In 2023, when the Sixers took the fourth-quarter lead in Game Six and them pulling out the win started to cross the threshold from “not impossible” to “actually sorta likely” — before they ultimately coughed it up, of course — I did a quick temp-check on my own emotions and was a little confused by the reading. I felt a little scared, a little fraudulent. I felt like I wasn’t ready. I felt like it wasn’t going to feel how I wanted it to feel. And if I wasn’t going to enjoy a second-round series win against the Celtics anywhere near as much as I hated a second-round series loss to the Celtics, then what was the point of any of this? Had I really wasted the last decade emotionally investing in something whose upside was nowhere near commensurate to — or as likely a result as — its downside?

But no. Last night felt like it was supposed to feel. Last night felt fucking beautiful. Whether or not last night alone makes the whole thing worth it isn’t a call I feel prepared to make right now, and it’s one that might still be a little subject to change based on how this next series against the Knicks and potentially everything after goes. But this was great. This was real. This was unruinable. This was the reminder that there are reasons why I put myself through all this — dumb reasons, but not stupid reasons. I got to watch the biggest Sixers series win of my adult life unfold almost exactly how I’d want it to, against the exact team I’d want it to, with maximum joy on our side and maximum pain on theirs. I got to share the experience with the two people in my life who I love the most, and who have seen me through the most times of things going the other way. I got to go to sleep happy and wake up happy. And now I get to find out what happens when you win the Ultimate Game and still get to keep playing next series.

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Andrew Unterberger writes for The Rights To Ricky Sanchez, as part of the ‘If Not, Pick Will Convey as Two Second-Rounders’ section of the site. You can follow Andrew on Twitter @AUGetoffmygold and can also read him at Billboard.

Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey led the Sixers to their enormous round one upset over the Boston Celtics, and the Sixers for the first time in the Process era, beat a good team in the playoffs.

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Quick note before you read this: I was going through Ricky emails and I became inspired to write the following post. I didn’t know if anyone else was writing anything, I just knew I needed to write it. I then sent a text to Ricky Editor In Chief Andrew Unterberger, and this is the exchange, and the reason you’re getting two posts from two people essentially saying the same thing but unaware that the other was going to say it.

And with that, here is my original post, reluctantly edited and posted by AU.

“It’s OK to lose, just don’t embarrass us,” was the theme of the end of the podcast that Mike and I did on Thursday night.

That’s been pretty much the theme the entire series, as evidenced by how furious we were with the 30 point losses (embarrassing), and relatively unbothered by the six point loss (not embarrassing).

When we were finishing up and discussing whether the Sixers would win Game Seven, we both settled into that comfortable spot we had spend the entire postseason. “Just don’t make us have to defend you in public,” is essentially what we’re saying. But as I said it, I could tell that I really didn’t believe it, I was just too scared to express it publicly.

They have to win tonight. They just do. They can’t come this far and lose. I do believe they will win. I am full-on dumb-fuck bought in. I can’t believe it. I haven’t believed in the Sixers in literally years. But they have to win tonight and I think they will.

“Just don’t embarrass us” originates from two basic feelings. First, neither of us believed they could win the series. I am not ashamed of thinking this. It was reasonable. It’s also funny that we both believed it. As the podcast goes on, Mike is thinking more like me (he’d disagree which is fine but it’s true) and I’m thinking even more like me, so we do occasionally agree on things. It’s probably when we’re the most wrong, as well. The second feeling this thinking comes from is an unwillingness to believe, given all of the times we’ve been punished for doing so.

We have many memories of the last thirteen years of Process basketball and podcasts. Some of them are good, but most of are bad, or at best, weird (and also bad).

Bad: collapse against the Celtics, choke against the Heat, sweep by the Celtics in the bubble, the Kawhi shot, the Ben Simmons turned-down dunk against the Hawks, the various injuries, Zhaire Smith almost dying, Scott O’Neil, the entire 24-25 season, etc, etc…

Bad but Also Weird: Markelle Fultz forgetting how to shoot, Simmons never learning how to shoot, the Bryan Colangelo burners, Hinkie’s manifesto, the minority owner who claimed to be running the team with Brett Brown and then leaving several years later, New Philadelphia, etc, etc…

We deserve one real moment of pure basketball joy. The best moment of the era simply cannot be Joel Embiid watching TV to learn that he won the MVP. Having one of the consensus top five players in basketball for a decade can not be highlighted by that guy watching TV in some random room somewhere. It has to be on the court.

People will call us losers for celebrating the way we will celebrate if the Sixers win tonight, but I don’t particularly care. They have not beaten a good team in the playoffs during the Process era, and beating the largely consensus best team in the Easter Conference, after being down 3-1, when Joel Embiid misses the first three games, opening as a -900 underdog, and that team being the Celtics, who the Sixers haven’t beaten in 42 years, is a big fucking deal. It just is.

Not to mention, they deserve it. And when I say “they,” I mostly just mean Joel Embiid. Tyrese Maxey for sure deserves it, but he will get other chances. Same for VJ Edgecombe. I will feel good for Oubre of course. Paul George, I dunno, I’m glad he’s playing well but “deserves it” would be a reach. Embiid is the only person on the team, or front office who has been through all of this with us. I would like for him to get this moment as well.

If they win tonight, I would recommend you do not jump immediately to “there’s no one in the East we can’t beat.” Give yourself the chance to enjoy something for once. If I can do it, I am pretty sure you can.

Now go fucking beat them.

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I’ll admit that I’ve basically been sleepwalking through the Sixers’ playoff run to this point. Past Sixers runs have taken over my every waking moment, forced me to reorient my entire schedule, basically made me a different (and almost certainly worse) person altogether. But this year, I’ve been emotionally backburnering the team as I’ve never really been able to before. I got home from a work trip basically five minutes before their play-in game started and barely gave the matchup a second ‘s thought while traveling. I watched Game One against the Celtics with my girlfriend Lisa at a bar where no one else cared, and after they got creamed we went out to see You, Me & Tuscany. When Game Five seemed to be getting out of hand in the first half and the C’s scored the first six points of what was looking to be a very typically Sixers third quarter, I thought to myself OK, I’m about ready for this to be over anyway.

Even when they somehow came back to win that Game Five, I was still able to keep it snoozey. The next night, a Knicks fan friend of mine who’d been surprisingly scared of the Sixers basically all season asked me what it would take for me to view the Sixers as seriously as he did. I said if they won Game Six I would admit that it’s a real series. But I was pretty sure we wouldn’t get that far; the Sixers’ better-than-expected results to that point still felt fluky, the result of shooting variance and some general Weird Shit we were unlikely to see repeated a third time. It all felt like a twist-the-knife prelude to the Celtics snapping to life and putting the hammer down on us in our building, again, of course. So the night of Game Six, I went out with Lisa to karaoke and an Afghan Whigs concert, got drunk as hell, and didn’t think much about the Sixers until it was time for me to pull up the game after. And the Sixers not only beat the Celtics, they dominated, looking every bit the better, steadier, swaggier team. 3-3, series even — and maybe, like, really even. My Knicks fan friend vindicated. Real series confirmed.

I was asleep. But now I’m awake. And I need the Sixers to win in Game 7.

Before Game Six, I think we’d all been participation-trophying the Sixers, as Mike and Spike put it on Thursday night’s all-time Ricky. Hey it’s cool that we got out of the play-in in one game, even without Joel. Nice, we actually took one from Boston. Sick that we got a VJ game too — he looks like he belongs, he’s getting some great experience, that’ll be really valuable down the line. Hah, we almost got that Game Three at home too, how crazy would that have been. And Paul George has been pretty good so far this series! Maybe that’ll help with his trade value in the offseason. Awesome that Joel battled back to somehow actually play in this series, even if the rest of this all is getting pretty fucking sad. And wow, we actually took another game in Boston! That’ll give us some good momentum going into the offseason at least. It was all very pat on the head, good-job-for-a-team-that’s-certainly-gonna-lose-anyway emotional handicapping.

But now here we are. The sheer elation of a Game Six win to tie the series gives way to the panic that the team still has to play a Game Seven to potentially win the series. In Boston. Like in 2023. Y’all remember 2023? I certainly remember 2023. I remember my Sixers fandom turning a different color that day. I probably wouldn’t call it the worst Sixers loss of my lifetime — just because Game 7 against the Hawks two years earlier was so much more inexcusable — but I would certainly call it the most disgusting, the most why are we even doing this Sixers loss of my lifetime. And now we maybe get to do it all over again, to close out a series none of us thought we were going to have to really care about the outcome of in the first place, since it felt so predetermined from the beginning.

And that’s the most frightening part: The outcome is not predetermined anymore. The Sixers really could win this series. Not in an oh well if this happens then maybe that happens, chain-of-increasingly-unlikely-dominos-to-fall sort of sense. They’re right there. They’ve not only won three games in this series already, they’ve won each of those by double digits. They’re on a two-game winning streak. They have a winning record in Boston. They can no longer be written off as overmatched, just happy to be here, just happy to not be embarrassed. They are in this thing, in every way. The Sixers really could win this series.

Which means, that, well, that’s actually what they have to do now. No more feel-good losses, no more moral victories. Participation trophies revoked. Now it’s just either they win or they lose. If they win it’s validation for everyone, abject misery for our enemies, great times forever and ever. If they lose, it’s fraudulence confirmed, gut-wrenching misery all summer, maybe a brand new and even uglier color for our fandom, good times never again. That’s it. Sorry.

Some good folks on Bluesky have tried to sell me on us still being in the it’s-all-gravy-from-here honeymoon phase, that we’ve taken enough good stuff from getting this far in this series that we can still feel good about it even if they lose. Moral victory still in play. Team Is Different This Year still in play. Emotional hedging season in full effect. I admire them. I envy them.

I cannot join them. Not this time. I remember 2023 too well. I remember how different it felt when the Sixers went up 3-2 in Boston that year, winning on the road to take the series lead with everyone playing well, They Never Win That Game etc. etc. But what I remember better much than that is how it felt in Game Six when the Sixers missed a couple potential dagger threes in the fourth quarter that would’ve likely put the Celtics away, and then Jayson Tatum woke up like The Mountain in Game of Thrones to punish our arrogance in not finishing the kill when we had the chance. And then what I remember even better than that is how it felt when the Sixers phoned in Game 7 in historically losery fashion, basically having a sub wheel out the JVC and pop in a VHS for the Celtics to watch while they fucked off to do God knows what, rather than actually showing up for the most important game of most of their careers. Did any of us come away from that series going ah yeah but that Game Five win, we really had them there for a second didn’t we?

By the way — I remember 2024, too. That actually was a series that the Sixers did play well to the end, and lost just because Joel still was playing on one leg and because Josh Hart is an asshole and because shit happens, whatever. That series really was a feel-good loss. Until it wasn’t. Because that’s the thing about feel good losses — they’re still losses. They stay losses. You still have to watch the rest of the playoffs go on without you, as the warm feeling you once got from knowing your guys tried hard and did their best gets chillier and chillier and you eventually go wait what the fuck why don’t I feel good about this anymore? It’s because whatever the mitigating circumstances, whatever the context, whatever the “well it was only a five-game series but it really felt more like six” of it all, the goal in the playoffs is to win and you lost. And you’ve never won. You’ve only lost.

This year, the Sixers can win. Win, with a W. None of us thought they could but they can. They can do something that they’ve never done before, and that they might never be able to do again. The next time we’re one win away from vanquishing the Celtics — or any other Actually Good Team, but particularly the motherfucking Celtics — it could be 10 years, three coaches, two GMs and an entirely new roster from now. It could be 20 years. It could be fucking never. This year, they’re here. And they can win. They can redeem the whole damn thing, everything we’ve gone through that’s brought us to this point. They can do it. They have to.

Will they? That’s the question none of us seems to have the answer to yet. Of course that’s generally the way sports are supposed to work, but ask Sixers fans about Game 7 in 2023 and they’ll all tell you everyone knew they were gonna lose that game. Not totally the way I remember it to be honest but fine. There was certainly at least a feeling before that game. We’d blown Game Six at home, we’d seen how Joel and James Harden responded historically to do-or-die situations, it was the Celtics, it was the Sixers, blah blah blah. We had an inclination on how things were gonna go, for sure. This time, there’s no “for sure.”

I remember reading something just before the 2024 presidential election that basically said that whichever way the election turns out, it will seem incredibly obvious after the fact that that was the way the election was going to turn out the entire time. There was enough of a compelling narrative on both sides, and enough legitimate evidence to support it, that with the eventual outcome sliding into place, it would be such a neat and tidy story that in retrospect, it would be hard to believe there was ever any other outcome that was seriously in play. I would say the same about this Sixers-Celtics Game 7.

If the Sixers win, it’ll be Of course. The Sixers can only ever win after we’ve all finally written them off — not just in an overly emotional we’re-so-over-we’re-so-back sense, but in a legitimate there-was-absolutely-no-reason-to-believe sense. But it had to happen this way: against Boston, in Boston, in a series that Boston had all but wrapped up before inexplicably choking it away. With Joel Embiid finally rising to the occasion, and Paul George vanquishing the ghosts of his own 3-1 playoff collapse and Andre Drummond somehow being the “how has this guy never missed a shot against us??” guy. They turned the corner. They shifted the vibes. This is how it happens. This was always how it was going to happen.

And if the Celtics win, it’ll be Of course. The Sixers were never actually going to win this series. What, you thought that just because they were catching up from behind this time instead of losing steam from ahead that the final outcome was going to be different? The Celtics were always going to get it together just in time — that’s what they do against the Sixers. All of this feel-good Sixers bullshit, all of this supposed Celtics choking was just to wake all you Process Trusters from your slumbers, to trick you into caring about wins and losses again even though you were desperately trying not to this time, just so the Celtics could fucking stick it in you one more time, and maybe close out the entire Joel Embiid era in the process. The Sixers never really had a chance. This was always how it was going to happen.

I don’t know which of the two inevitable outcomes is the one we’re actually getting tonight. If I had to bet on it — and in a sense I do, with stakes a lot higher than a $100 DraftKings bet or whatever — I’d still probably say Celtics win. But if I was going to make the case for things actually being different this year, I’d start with Joel. There’s been a calm to him these last three games that I’ve never seen before from him, that I certainly would have seen coming in such a pressurized, high-stakes series as this. He’s reading situations, making adjustments, never getting too high or low. He’s dishing out three times as many assists as turnovers, after spending most of his career struggling just to break even there. He hasn’t even started to hit shots yet and he’s been awesome. As the guys said on the last pod, it’s like the game’s slowed down for him. It feels like he spent the two weeks recovering from his appendectomy in deep meditation, maybe learning there’s things (allegedly) more important than beating the Celtics, It feels like a different Joel. Unless of course it turns out in Game Seven to be the exact same Joel. Could still go either way.

Everything could still go either way tonight. But the thing we better get with before then is that there’s only two ways for it to go: win or lose. Win good, lose bad, end story. If we lose close, with our guys playing well and showing lots of positive signs for the future? I dunno, maybe we can find time to feel good about that in Second August or whatever. It will not mean anything this postseason, and it probably shouldn’t. We’ve done this too many times already. It’s time to burn the emotional hedging ships. No saving anything for the way back. We leave Boston with a win or we don’t leave at all. I don’t know which one it’ll be, but I know that for the first time this postseason, I’ll truly be there and totally locked in for it. Wake up everybody.

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Andrew Unterberger writes for The Rights To Ricky Sanchez, as part of the ‘If Not, Pick Will Convey as Two Second-Rounders’ section of the site. You can follow Andrew on Twitter @AUGetoffmygold and can also read him at Billboard.

This Sixers series against the Celtics is the single most shocked I’ve been by anything that has happened during the Process Era. I am trying to figure out what emotion I can express to you the morning after Game 6, and all I keep saying to myself is “I can’t believe this is happening.”

I am obviously elated, and still kind of anxious (as they still have to win one more game), but the number one thing I am is shocked.

Markelle Fultz forgetting how to shoot was less surprising. Bryan Colangelo’s burners? Easier to predict. Zhaire Smith almost dying because of a food allergy he didn’t know he had from food that the Sixers served him? Well, if you look at the odds, there are a lot of food allergies out there and a Sixer was bound to have one of them.

Something happened prior to the 4th quarter of game five that turned the team into the ideal version of themselves. The way they’ve defended for the last game and a quarter is just not something I believed they could do. They went from a team that gave up more open threes than any team I’ve ever watched in my adult life to being able to prevent the Boston Celtics, a team that is built around getting open threes, from getting any of them.

There were no signs pointing to this happening prior to this series starting.

(Before I continue, I know you could be reading this saying out loud, “I knew they were going to win!” I am happy for you. I believe you thought they were going to win. If we’re all being honest with ourselves you’ve said this every time.)

The numbers didn’t say it could happen. The Celtics were one of the best teams in the league on offense and defense all year long. The Sixers were, even with Joel and PG on the court, pretty uninspiring.

The vibes certainly weren’t pointing to it. The Celtics went into the playoffs with a “we can win even sitting all of our best players” victory over the Magic, while the Sixers fumbled themselves into the play-in, and their best player had an emergency appendicitis.

History was not on our side. The Sixers haven’t beaten the Celtics in a playoff series since Ronald Reagan’s first term in office. And once the playoffs began, once the Celtics went up 3-1, 95.6 of those teams win the series. The Sixers have never won a playoff series after going down 3-1.

Mike predicted a sweep. AU was writing missives about how sad we all are just a few days ago. The Stat Man was like “better pray!” None of us saw this coming.

And yet, here the Sixers are, on the verge of the first good playoff series win since we’ve been doing the Ricky.

A lot of times people say, “I’d be happy to be wrong but…” right before they say they think something bad is going to happen. Every time I laughed at the idea of the Sixers winning this series, I would say that.

Needless to say, very wrong. Very happy. Go win Game 7.

Team Ricky

• Most of the content we’ve produced over the last week is really not that timely to be consuming now, to be honest.

• Here’s last night’s Ricky. It’s a good one. There is an NSFW part toward the end where I suggest Nick Nurse might show up on my doorstep and play a guitar solo with his dick so be careful there.

• Beckett, the Stat Man, wrote about how the SIxers could win Game 6. I suppose all of this holds for Game 7.

• The new album from The Fray is my favorite album of 2026 so far. It’s really incredible. We did an episode of The Carl Landry Record Club about it. If you want to suggest an album for the podcast, do it here.

Team Non-Ricky

• Kelly Oubre is a gift. Speaking of surprising, never thought he would become what he is. May he never sign anywhere else (unless it’s a record deal).

• KOC with some kind words about Maxey.

• I don’t really have anything else. The Sixers forced a Game 7 with the Celtics. The Flyers are not only in the playoffs but are “the hot young team nobody wants to face with the hot goalie.” The Phillies are now undefeated with Donnie Baseball signing the lineup cards (shout out SixersAdam). Soak it in, baby.

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Where did these Sixers come from? Sixers win, Game 7 is on Saturday. Are they gonna win? They have to.

The Rights To Ricky Sanchez is presented by Draft Kings Sportsbook

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The Sixers exist to push us into the depths of despair… so it was only right that they put together one of their best games of the season when down 3-1 to ignite the sparks of hope once again. Most prognosticators (myself included) didn’t think going in that this series would go past five games, but now they’re just two wins away from pulling off the greatest series victory of the Process Era — and somehow, against all better judgment, it feels at least a little more real after last night. That’s how they get you.

We know the obvious reason for the wins and losses: the Celtics live and die by the three, and so far they have died twice and lived thrice (26.9% from three in losses this series and 41.7% in wins), and in many ways, it really is that simple. The problem is the Sixers can only do so much about that — three-point shooting can be notoriously fickle regardless of defensive effort — and the Celtics are an elite shooting team overall, so the Sixers likely have to win at least one game where Boston gets hot again from deep. Relying purely on Celtics shooting variance is less a strategy and more a prayer.

So where else have they been able to make up the difference, and how can they leverage it into another win in Game 6?

Defensive rebounds are one clear area, as expected coming into the series, though the reason may not be quite what you think. Of course, the rebounding overall has been brutal, as the Sixers have allowed the Celtics to grab over 40% of their misses (10th percentile) in Games 2-4, and the Sixers have only been above average on the defensive glass in their Game 5 win on Tuesday. Now you might be saying to yourself: “Well the Sixers won Game 2, so how did they pull that off while still giving up a boatload of second chances?” The key (outside of the aforementioned three-point shooting) is what they allow Boston to do with those second chances.

In the Sixers’ three losses, the Celtics absolutely shredded them on putbacks, scoring after offensive rebounds at rates of 1.25 points per possession (PPP) in Game 1, 1.40 PPP in Game 3, and 1.20 PPP in Game 4, all well above average. This is why every bucket off of an offensive rebound feels like an absolute dagger — because, statistically speaking, it basically has been. However, in their two wins, the Sixers have been able to hold the Celtics’ putback scoring to just 0.83 PPP in Game 2 and 0.56 PPP in Game 5, both excellent numbers.

As much as I would love to say otherwise, it’s probably too much to ask at this point for the Sixers to become a good defensive rebounding team in general. We’re too far into a season of lackluster effort ending possessions, and Boston is a brutal matchup on the glass. But if the Sixers can sharpen their focus after the offensive rebounds they will inevitably allow — staying attached to shooters, avoiding scramble breakdowns, and limiting the actual damage of those second chances — then they might have a real shot. They do not need perfection here. They just need the rebounds they lose to stop instantly becoming backbreaking.

This commitment to hanging back and cleaning up possessions could cost them some transition opportunities, but honestly, that may be a tradeoff worth making, because the other notable win condition for the Sixers is leaning harder into their halfcourt offense.

The Sixers’ offensive execution in their two wins has been excellent, and it has relied almost exclusively on 95th percentile scoring in the halfcourt. In fact, in those wins, Philadelphia has simply been more efficient in the halfcourt than in transition, which feels surprising at first until you remember just how good Boston is at limiting both the volume and efficiency of open-floor chances — something Sixers’ fans will be all too familiar with from the seemingly dozens of times Derrick White or Jordan Walsh have broken up clean-looking transition opportunities.

When the Sixers can slow the game down and execute, it allows them to set their defense more effectively, which reduces transition cross-matches, which then also helps limit offensive rebound chaos. One clean possession can prevent three future problems, which for this team is about as close to stability as it gets. It all links together. Isn’t basketball so fun?

This is still a deeply dangerous game to play as a Sixers fan. Hope has historically been the first step toward emotional ruin. No, the Sixers aren’t suddenly favorites. Yes, Boston’s shooting could still erase all of this in one avalanche quarter. But this series has shifted from “please don’t embarrass yourselves” to “wait… is there actually a chance?” If the Sixers can keep controlling what is in their power — halfcourt precision, defensive discipline after misses, and enough mental resilience to survive the inevitable Celtics shooting barrage — then maybe this dream isn’t dead just yet. And honestly, what’s the Process Era without one more completely unnecessary emotional investment?

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Joel Embiid dominated the Celtics inside, and the Sixers held the Celtics to 11 points in the fourth quarter, winning game five and forcing a game six. Eat shit, Celtics fans if you’re listening to this.

The Rights To Ricky Sanchez is presented by Draft Kings Sportsbook

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Surfside Iced Tea and Vodka is the official canned cocktail of The Ricky.

One of my truly cherished memories of the Joel Embiid era — one that maybe has gotten lost to time a little — was Game Three against the Heat in 2022. He’d gotten elbowed in the eye by Pascal Siakam at the end of a Sixers blowout victory to close out the Raptors in the first round, and reports said that it fucked him up so bad he could barely even look at his phone in the days to follow. His return was without a timetable, and with DeAndre Jordan starting in his stead, the first two games of our second-round series in Miami were both absolute laughers, as we wondered if the series would be over before we could even have a serious conversation about Joel’s return.

But against all odds, Embiid made it back for Game Three in Philly. His numbers in the game were pretty meh by his standards — 18 and 11, four turnovers to one assist — but the lift he gave the Sixers, particularly on defense, was enough to power a 99-79 victory. It really seemed like he had saved the season, and after a superlative James Harden performance in Game Four knotted the series at 2-2, it felt like a potential turning point in the Big Man’s entire career arc. Then Miami steamrolled Philly in the next two games, and it was immediately back to Same Old Sixers. But still, the emotional wallop of watching a masked Embiid gut out that Game Three victory, pushing his body to the absolute limit just to be there for his team and for us, is a feeling I’ll never forget.

Sunday night against Boston could have felt like that too. Maybe it did for a few minutes. But instead of saving the Sixers from oblivion in Game Four, this time Embiid’s return game brought them back to its edge, halting the momentum of a series that had gone better than expected and raising the usual barrage of questions both practical and existential about what the hell we’re even doing here. And I can’t even get mad at any of it anymore — at Joel, at his teammates, at management, even at the Celtics. All I am now is sad.

I’m certainly not surprised. Though after his availability for Game Four was officially announced, my timeline was filled with Sixers fans predicting Joel’s return could very easily bring the series even with Boston — perhaps even give them the edge moving forward — all I could really think about was the ways it could go wrong.

Certainly, I had visions of Jo taking an elbow to the midsection from a Sam Hauser type and walking gingerly to the locker room as a million Philadelphians Googled “How easy is it for stitches to get torn out after an appendectomy?” But more practically, I thought of Embiid predictably struggling in his first game action in nearly three weeks, of the shot not going down and the ball going the other way as he tried to force shit that just wasn’t there. And more importantly, I thought of him knocking the rest of the team out of the groove they’d developed in three games in this series, of Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe being overly deferential as the team tried to get him going early, and then being unable to quickly microwave themselves once it came time to provide offense of their own.

In truth, Joel’s own performance went a little better than I expected. Yes, he was out of rhythm — only three for his first 12, missing the kind of open mid-rangers that he can usually hit in a Shirley Temple-induced coma when he’s really rolling — but he never forced anything, generally taking the shots that were available for him, and actually moving the ball quite well to try to get his teammates going at the same time. And after hitting his groove in the third quarter, his final stat line was totally reasonable for a first game back against a good defense, and far superior to that night four years ago against Miami: 26 points on 21 shots, with 10 boards and six assists to just three turnovers.

But it didn’t matter. The rest of the team couldn’t figure out anything on offense: Embiid grinded his way to 10 points in the first quarter, but his teammates could only combine for eight total, as Payton Pritchard started shooting holy hellfire from his fingertips and the C’s sped out to a 16-point lead. The Sixers clanged away any hopes at a comeback effort from there: Neither Joel nor anyone else could hit in the second quarter, and when Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown got hot in the third as Pritchard refused to cool down, that was pretty much it. I spent most of the fourth quarter reading Keith Richards’ autobiography Life while the Sixers ran out the clock on a game — and in all likelihood a series — that had long slipped away from them.

Four years ago, I probably would have been angry about this game — about the offense crumpling around Joel, about the defense making it too easy for Boston, about Nick Nurse’s rotations and challenges raising a lot of process questions that last night’s results absolutely did not answer, about Payton fucking Pritchard. I haven’t heard last night’s Ricky yet, but I’m confident Mike was able to bring the fury of a Southern Baptist minister incensed that his congregation seemed to be losing the battle to Satan. I’m sure a lot of Sixers fans feel the same way. Maybe I should too.

Unfortunately, I can’t get past the level of it is what it is. Because it really is: None of this should have been hard to see coming, either from this year’s Sixers and Celtics or the respective histories of the two teams the past decade. The last two games in this series — a shocker Sixers win in Boston and then a to-the-wire C’s victory in Philly — gave us hope that the gap between these teams wasn’t as big as we’d believed at the beginning of the series, and particularly after the Celtics’ Game One blowout, and I do still think that it probably isn’t. But however big that gap truly is, if we thought it was going to get immediately bridged in this series by a sooner-than-expected Embiid return from injury, we really just haven’t been paying close enough attention the last year, or the last 10.

In our heads, us Sixers fans have this fantasy vision of a late-career Joel who just kinda comes and goes from the lineup unobtrusively: one who’s not the offensive threat he once was, and doesn’t get fed the ball like he is, but who can occasionally bail the Sixers out of late-clock situations, hit a wide-open jumper when passed to, and just be a general upgrade in intelligence and ability on both sides of the ball from whoever the team’s current backup C is. We dream of a version of Embiid who only adds, never subtracts — sort of the big man version of what Paul George is currently giving us, where he’ll never win us a game totally on his own, but he can maybe hold down his part for long enough to at least give the team’s younger guys the chance to do so themselves.

That version of Joel has never come for this team, and at this point I think we should probably accept it’s not going to. He’s still just too fucking good on offense, too fucking valuable, even at some limited percentage of health and capability, to stash him in the corner or dunker’s spot and have him be a bystander to the team’s primary action. Maxey is never going to watch Joel set a pick at the top of the key and either roll to the basket or pop to behind the arc as both defenders wall off his own drive and not think to himself I should get the ball to Joel. Boston seemed to both anticipate and encourage this last night, blitzing Maxey and leaving Joel relatively unattended for jumper after jumper. They knew that even after so many years and so much time missed, even after the past two Sixers-Celtics games went the way they went without him, that the team would still default to Jo Ball — and that most likely, things would unravel for the Sixers from there.

Again, I’m not really blaming anyone for any of this. Not Joel, who’s just doing what’s come naturally to him for a decade now, and who has an MVP, multiple scoring titles, and an eventual ticket to Springfield after he retires to show for it. (And who even in this limited and frustrating season for him, still averaged 27 points a night with a PER around 25.) And not Tyrese, who for sure could’ve stood to be a little more aggressive last night, but who generally got the ball to the Big Man in his spots — which has been the answer to qualify offense for this team for Maxey’s entire career. Not the rest of the team, who (outside of PG) couldn’t hit a shot to save their lives or season— that shit’s frustrating as hell, certainly, but there are gonna be games like that in the playoffs, especially for a team knocked out of their rhythm, and especially from a guy like VJ who’s never been here before. And I certainly don’t blame the franchise itself for bringing Joel back in the first place: However close this series was, Philly absolutely wasn’t winning it without him, so holding him out in the hopes we could bow out in a slightly neater and feel-goodier fashion would’ve been unimaginably losery, even by Sixers standards.

But despite the lack of anyone to truly hold accountable for it, the result is that now, everything feels bad. The Celtics have once again wrested control of the series. The Sixers have once again fallen on their faces in front of a cackling national audience and a pissed-off local one, courting boos from the home fans and sarcastic (and disconcertingly loud) chants from the away fans. Joel Embiid has once again stepped up to be the hero and will have to once again slink away as a failure. The series isn’t technically over yet, but it may as well be: The idea of winning one more game against Boston suddenly seems impossibly daunting again, let alone each of the next three. We’re out of time for this season.

And of course, we may be out of time for this team, period. As we’ve reiterated time and time again, this season went about as good as could reasonably be expected for the Sixers — 45-37, with half a healthy and productive Embiid season, another leap from Maxey and a breakthrough rookie campaign from Edgecombe — and it still couldn’t get us anywhere but here. Joel got one more chance to rewrite his playoff narrative — not a particularly good chance, mind you, but a chance — and failing some miracle end to this series, has instead written one more chapter like all the rest. Maybe this time it’s the last chapter.

But I should say here — and I probably should’ve said it much earlier in this column — that I love, love, love Joel Embiid for the game he played last night. I love him for playing in it at all. I love how hard he fought to get back here, that after spending such an unfair percentage of his career waging battles against his own body, he still had it in him to go back into that breach once more. I love that after all these years, he still wants to be out there, that he still wants the chance to put right what for so many seasons and so many reasons has gone wrong, that he still believes he can and should will us to a different end to the story this time. I love that even though some part of him probably knows at this point it’s all going to end in heartbreak, he’d rather the heartbreak come with him on the floor than him on the sidelines. If he had finished 4-21 for 13 points and given way to Adem Bona for the entire fourth quarter, I still would have loved him for it. At some point down the road, we’ll all look back on Joel’s career and love him just as much for his hard-fought failures like this as we do for any of his achievements.

In the moment, though, it’s just sad. Sad that we’re gonna lose to Boston again, sad that we have no idea what the version of this team that could possibly actually beat Boston might look like. Sad that Joel deserves a warrior’s reception today and will instead be treated like a punchline. Sad that this team is more likely to break up than to make up by this time next season. Sad that it’s been 10 years of this shit. Sad that it’s been an entire lifetime of this shit. So very, very sad about us.

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Andrew Unterberger writes for The Rights To Ricky Sanchez, as part of the ‘If Not, Pick Will Convey as Two Second-Rounders’ section of the site. You can follow Andrew on Twitter @AUGetoffmygold and can also read him at Billboard.

Joel Embiid triumphantly returned, then the Sixers triumphantly got their asses kicked. They trail 3-1. The season is on the brink.

The Rights To Ricky Sanchez is presented by Draft Kings Sportsbook

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Surfside Iced Tea and Vodka is the official canned cocktail of The Ricky.

No game till Sunday night, so a new Carl Landry Record Club right now.

We discuss the album ‘A Light That Waits’ by The Fray and the new song “Etyd” by Jose Gonzalez.

*This episode was recorded on Sunday, April 12, 2026

For all of Mutlu’s tour dates and tickets visit⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.mutlusounds.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠

To suggest an album, hit the link below

The intro music is “I Should Let You Know” by Marian Hill.

Well, the Sixers didn’t win, but they also didn’t embarrass us. We talk about the game, and the potential return of Joel Embiid.

Donate to Spike’s Walk For Paws fundraiser for the BVSPCA here: https://secure.qgiv.com/event/2026walkforpaws/account/2277596/

The Rights To Ricky Sanchez is presented by Draft Kings Sportsbook

Anthony Degli Obizzi is the official Financial Planner of The Ricky, text RICKY to 484-471-4873 to set up a conversation

Become a MortgageCS Ricky VIP at mortgagecs.com/ricky

LL Pavorsky Jewelers is where Rights To Ricky Sanchez listeners go and get engaged.

Surfside Iced Tea and Vodka is the official canned cocktail of The Ricky.

There are several layers to being a Sixers fan at this point.

When I say “being a Sixers fan,” I mean in the way that we are Sixers fans. Not in the way that most people in the Delaware Valley would of course, prefer to see the Sixers win. I mean in that being a fan of this team is part of your identity to other people, whether you choose for it to be or not. It’s sort of like when I got a cat years ago (rest in peace, Alabama, love you), and even though I didn’t choose it, I immediately became a cat guy to my mom and many others. Cat birthday cards, etc… Oh, that’s Spike, he has a cat and he likes it so he must be a cat guy. I mean that kind of Sixers fan.

The layer I’m going to write about is the layer of having to answer for the team, even though you had nothing to do with it. And the material piece of information here is what you’re going to have to answer for if Joel Embiid comes back and the Sixers lose anyway. Particularly, if he comes back tonight (he is listed as doubtful), and the Sixers end up losing the series 4-1, so the final win we see is the VJ/Maxey game in game two.

This is, no doubt, a nightmare for this kind of Sixers fan. Not just because the Sixers will have lost to the Celtics again, which you’re likely very emotionally prepared for, but because you’re going to have to argue about Joel Embiid again.

“I told you they should have gotten rid of him!”

“They just play with so much more hunger when he’s not there!”

“They’re just so much more exciting without him!”

And although there might be some morsel of truth in these things they say, I must recommend you do not even engage. Your response should be, “haha yeah,” and nothing more. If it’s in text messages or group chats, just “haha yeah,” and come back later. If it’s in person, it’s obviously tougher, but the less interested you seem and the less your blood pressure raises, the better.

The well actually route is just going to make you insane, and this is coming from a card carrying member of the Well Actually… Hall of Fame.

Last Chance To Save These Poor Dogs That Don’t Have Homes

This is going to be the last money ask for a while. I’m just $391 from my goal of raising $10,000 for the Brandywine Valley SPCA and their mission to save as many of these dogs and cats (also the occasional bunny or goat) as possible. I look at my two idiots, Rebel and Scotchie, and realize how they’ve changed my life. I figure it’s my job to make sure I can save as many Rebels and Scotchies as possible. You can donate here. If you’ve already donated, or even have just shared this, thank you so much (to be clear it’s a slightly larger thank you if you donated than if you just just shared).

Team Ricky

• Beckett looked at the numbers of a Sixers vs. Celtics series and how the Sixers might be able to shock the world.

• We did a Carl Landry Record Club pod about an album from an artist named Samora Pinderhughes that I had never heard but am glad I did. Very cool album. New pod about the new album from The Fray coming out this weekend.

• If you’d like to suggest an album you love for the Carl, just submit it here.

• The pod after Game 2 was a fun one. Also, we had noted that some of the playoff pods might not happen right after the game, that is no longer true. Mike’s finished with his writing duties for the second season of The Paper, so we’re right on time now.

Team Non-Ricky

• Sixers Adam’s substitution chart from Game 2. Great job, Sixers Adam, on charting the substitutions again.

• Jeremy Lin is trying to gaslight us about Nick Nurse. I love Jeremy Lin but I will not forget this.

• Lastly, I have to admit, I’m Flyered up. There was a part of me that was like, “I do not have time to add the NHL playoffs to the diet of sports I have to watch,” but it is nice to watch a team in that spot we were in 2017, when the team was young, had no expectations, and everyone figured was going to get better for the next several years. The poor Flyers die-hards have no idea what’s about to happen next year, when everyone just assumes they’ll win the Stanley Cup, but for now, this is fun.

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We’re not embarrassed! VJ Edgecombe balled out, the Sixers stepped up, and Andre Drummond hit a three. We talk about all of it and say who we’re rooting for in the rest of the playoffs.

Donate to Spike’s Walk For Paws fundraiser for the BVSPCA here: https://secure.qgiv.com/event/2026walkforpaws/account/2277596/

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The Sixers went down early, then progressively went down by more and more as the game went on. Not great! But we do have some fun Doc Rivers quotes to laugh at.

Donate to Spike’s Walk For Paws fundraiser for the BVSPCA here: https://secure.qgiv.com/event/2026walkforpaws/account/2277596/

The Rights To Ricky Sanchez is presented by Draft Kings Sportsbook

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Kornblau Law is the official law firm of the process

Get 20% off any Body Bio order with the code in the podcast.

Surfside Iced Tea and Vodka is the official canned cocktail of The Ricky.

So it’s the Celtics again.

I’m not like Spike in his apparent apathy towards the Celtics. Growing up in Philly, there is a distinct hatred towards the Celtics that’s built into your childhood — and that was before I went to school in Boston the year the Celtics won the championship. So it would mean a great deal to me if the Sixers could bump their playoff series record over the last decade to 1-3 instead of 0-4 in this particular matchup.

Is that likely? No. Honestly, I’m not even sure it’s possible. Fair warning, I’m going to have to crush some hopes and dreams here first before I try to find some optimism. But every game counts, so let’s see if we can outline what the Sixers can do to make this series at least look competitive.

Now you might be a little doubtful of my pessimism, so let’s start first with why this matchup is so challenging in the first place.

For starters, the Celtics are just significantly better than the Sixers, even regardless of the availability of Joel Embiid, ranking fourth in the NBA in net rating (+8.4) and sitting in the top five in the league in both offensive and defensive efficiency. If both teams play to their standard — the Sixers’ standard of course still being their negative net rating of -0.3, good for 18th in the league — we can’t compete.

However, even beyond their general skill, the Celtics are a brutal matchup for a variety of reasons. These are the keys that will decide the series — let’s break them down one by one.

Offensive Rebounding

You thought the Knicks were a bad matchup because of offensive rebounds? The Celtics actually grab a higher percentage of their misses than the Knicks, ranking fifth in the NBA in ORB%. Not only that, but they also rank eighth in scoring efficiency on those putback chances. If the Sixers can’t defensive rebound — and there’s absolutely no reason to think they suddenly will — it’s going to be incredibly difficult to get stops defensively.

Transition Scoring

Not being able to rebound and end possessions also hurts the Sixers’ offense. Beyond steals, defensive rebounds are the best way to get out in the open floor, where Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe can make a difference. Like most teams, the Sixers have also been much more efficient when playing with pace, with a 126.0 offensive rating in transition (16th in the NBA) compared to just a 96.3 offensive rating in the halfcourt (23rd in the NBA). However, this is another area where the Celtics make for a brutal matchup, as Boston ranks third in the NBA in transition defense, both in efficiency allowed and in limiting transition opportunities overall. Without the ability to get easy buckets in the open floor, I find it difficult to see where consistent offense will come from.

Ball Security

The Sixers’ main defensive strength this year is their turnover creation, ranking eighth in the NBA at creating disruption, and it helps them get out and run. Unfortunately, the Celtics are once again a tough matchup here, ranking second in the league at limiting turnovers offensively. But this is not an area the Sixers can afford to let Boston control.

Given the edge the Celtics already have in the possession battle through offensive rebounding and the way turnovers can spark transition chances, the Sixers need to be able to exert their influence here. If the Celtics control the ball this whole series, we’ll be lucky to get a single game.

Three-Point Shooting (maybe some hope here!)

The Celtics are notorious for getting up a ton of threes — and they followed that strategy once again this year, ranking third in the league in three-point volume, taking nearly 44% of their attempts from beyond the arc (even this is fairly low for them, having taken over 50% of their shots from deep last season). The Sixers, as we all know, just absolutely adore giving up looks from beyond the arc, especially if they can find a way to make sure they’re wide-open ones.

However, within these overarching stats, there’s a bit of an interesting split. While the Celtics are first in the NBA by a mile with their non-corner three-point volume, they actually rank 29th in their volume from the corner itself. The Sixers’ strengths have a similar discrepancy, ranking 14th-lowest in their non-corner three-point volume, but 24th volume allowed from the corner — which makes sense, because that’s typically the shot you concede out of aggressive help and trapping. The Sixers are also fourth in their efficiency allowed on non-corner threes, meaning the matchup from beyond the arc might not be quite as lopsided as it might appear at first glance.

That doesn’t mean the Sixers should feel good about giving up threes — the Celtics shoot over 42% on corner attempts (fourth in the NBA), so please, stop overhelping for one damn series Nick — but it does introduce a path. If the Sixers can keep the ball out of the corner and live with the right shots, there’s at least a version of this series where Boston goes cold for a game or two and gives a glimmer of hope.

Now unfortunately, that’s about as optimistic as I can get in this series. These teams have shown all year how good they are, and I don’t expect a miraculous change now. So try not to get too upset when the Sixers give up three offensive rebounds in a possession (just typing this is making me annoyed, so I don’t know how realistic that is, but give it a shot). Simply enjoy the ride for what it is and find the fun in VJ’s first playoffs or watching Drummond take seven corner threes in a game when Mazulla refuses to acknowledge he’s on the floor. Because at some point, belief has to meet reality, and this series is where that happens.

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The Sixers start the playoffs tomorrow, against the Celtics (again).

Here’s a new episode of The Carl Landry Record Club to help you pass the time.

We discuss the album ‘Venus Smiles Not In The House Of Tears’ by Samora Pinderhughes, and Spacey Jane’s song “Do You Really Love Her.”

*This episode was recorded on Sunday, March 19, 2026

For all of Mutlu’s tour dates and tickets visit⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.mutlusounds.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠

To suggest an album hit the link below:

The intro music is “I Should Let You Know” by Marian Hill.

This is Carl Landry Record Club episode #189