Eitan Shander

Yeah, it's really just as far as how zoomed out do you want to look at this thing, right?

If you just look at it on a game seven, one game basis, the fact that they were down 3-1 in the series and even down in that game with five in which they were able to come back.

Amazing, amazing feed just in itself and it's in a vacuum, if you will.

But we know that nothing comes prepackaged in a vacuum and there's a lot to this.

The 76ers, while they were never supposed to in this series be in a game seven in the first place, they were never supposed to be a seven seed.

They were never supposed to have Joel Embiid extended absences throughout the season.

Joel Embiid as not the only one, right?

Paul George getting suspended, Tyrese Maxey missing time.

This was a team that was absolutely decimated.

But if I were to remove the seedings, the two and the seven, what have you, and just told you that a full-strength Celtics team is going to battle a full-strength Sixers team,

Would you really be surprised in its rhetorical no if it would go seven?

The only major issue was actually the pendulum swinging back on the Boston side, which is which team is going to be without their superstar the next, and that was going to be Jason Tatum.

So even within this series, you saw a pendulum swing back and forth where the Sixers were without Embiid, and they just looked lost at times.

Even their lone victory came in a way in which they could never play with Embiid on the floor.

Embiid comes back.

Jason Tatum gets worse to eventually out, and it just opened this door for Philadelphia.

But this is not Orlando sneaking by.

Like, this is not the Denver Nuggets with Dikembe Mutombo crying on his back as they were able to advance past.

This is a team that just was decimated by absence and injury and is now full strength and would probably be taking on a full-strength Celtics team in the Eastern Conference Finals, not in the first round.

I mean, you give me anybody else in hockey right now, at least on the east outside of this team here in Carolina, they're just such a tough team.