CAMDEN, N.J. -- The Philadelphia 76ers will look to make a statement on opening night when they take on the defending champion New York Knicks on Tuesday night. The Sixers will look to make things happen at Madison Square Garden and spoil ring night for the champs.
The last time these two teams met was in the playoffs when the Knicks swept the Sixers out of Round 2 back in May. Now? Philadelphia is a much different-looking team with the additions of LeBron James and Jaylen Brown along with some additions to the bench unit. The Sixers are in a great position to dethrone the Knicks in the coming season.
With that being said, the Knicks are a team that knows who they are. They play hard, have great chemistry, and they attack the glass led by Josh Hart, OG Anunoby, Karl-Anthony Towns, Mikal Bridges, and others. Keeping them off the glass could be the difference in a close game.
"I think it's obviously one of their major strengths, right?" said coach Nick Nurse. "Like it's at the top of the list of what needs to go well. Like, they cannot just be collecting a ton of offensive rebounds, kicking them out and hitting 3s. It's Hart. It's OG. It's Bridges. It's Deuce (McBride). It's (Jordan) Clarkson. So, they've done a good job. I think the role guys have excelled, and I've probably forgot one or two guys too in there. But still, that’s a major strength of theirs to win those extra possessions, and that makes a difference in a close game."
Hart, Anunoby, and Bridges are three perimeter players who crash the boards and rebound with reckless abandon. They are three players the Sixers are certainly going to have to figure out as they head into this matchup as they have given Philadelphia trouble in the past.
Nurse and the staff will also have to figure out what to do with Towns. Will the Sixers put Joel Embiid on Towns? Or have James or Brown defend him and have Embiid be something of a roamer. There are different ways for Philadelphia to defend the New York star if the Sixers go with a 4 on him instead of the traditional center.
"It allows you to switch a little more on the screen-and-rolls, right?" Nurse acknowledged. "That's a big one. Allows you maybe to get back to the pick-and-pop game a little bit, or take it out. You can play maybe a couple more coverages with that. I mean, the cons are: is can Towns pass over the 4? Can he rebound over the 4? Can he post up over the 4? Can he shoot over the 4?"
The Knicks will certainly be a tough challenge for the Sixers as they feature a strong roster that is coming off winning a championship and they have a ton of cohesion. Philadelphia doesn't have that quite yet. Therefore, Nurse is looking for the fight and the competitive level from his team.
"Just making tough plays," he stated. "Are we gonna fight through screens? Are we gonna put our body on people? Are we gonna rebound? Are we gonna set physical screens? Are we gonna protect the rim? You know, those kind of things. I think the physicality and the small big things."
Tip off in the season opener is set for 7 p.m. EDT on Tuesday.
This article originally appeared on Sixers Wire: Sixers discuss key points when it comes to defeating Knicks in opener