By Josh Liddick, Sports Talk Philly editor 
It feels weird to finally be writing this preview, but the day is finally here. Sixers Basketball is back in the City of Brotherly Love. It feels like this season brings so many more surprises and tidbits than any season in the past.
The Sixers are actually fun to watch again and the national media is actually intrigued by this young team and actually not looking at them and laughing. The Sixers are young, feisty, and ready to bring a winning basketball culture back to Philadelphia.
The road to a possible playoff berth starts tonight in DC with the Washington Wizards, and the matchup is an interesting one.
How are the Sixers going to gel as a team, and how are they going to matchup with a Wizards team that is very much a legitimate playoff contender?
Embiid is actually playing on Opening Night
Perhaps the biggest question heading into the offseason from the end of last year is whether or not Joel Embiid would be ready to play at the start of this season following a partially torn meniscus.
I personally wasn't ready to say that Embiid would be able to play Opening Night. But following his five year, $148 million contract extension, he inserted himself right into the Sixers' preseason rotation.
And right here you have it for the Sixers, a team that actually has Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons starting a game on the floor together. What a revolutionary concept.
In just two preseason games this season, the Sixers are 2-0 when Embiid plays and 0-3 when he doesn't. The difference in team play with and without Embiid is just staggering. It's not even exaggerating when you say Embiid is the most important player on the Sixers because it's true. Embiid brings this team to a whole other level.
But with Embiid comes injuries and right now, he's in a very touchy place with being injured and what that means for him in the starting lineup.
Brett Brown told the media yesterday that he sees Embiid playing tonight in somewhere in the range of the teens for minutes. Embiid responded with disappointment, and quite frankly, anger.
But the team needs to decide when is the best time to use Embiid. You definitely want him to start out a game on the floor, but you also want him to close out a game too.
Tonight, if the Sixers decide to limit Embiid to 16 minutes on the floor, the team will have to decide when they want to put Embiid and where he's going to play. They'll need to dispense those minutes efficiently.
Keep an eye out for the second team
There's a lot to take a look at from the starting lineup standpoint of this game, but with the way the bench looks coming out tonight, there's a lot to dig your teeth into.
Dario Saric in this present moment may be one of the NBA's best sixth men. Saric showed in the last couple preseason games especially against the Brooklyn Nets that he's every bit of a scorer that he was last season.
When Saric was on the floor for the Sixers in their games last season, especially when Embiid went down with a season-ending injury, he was very tough to guard and tough to start.
At the beginning of the year, Saric came off the bench and was efficient but struggled at times against much better power forwards. Once he took over as the starter when Ersan Ilyasova was traded to the Atlanta Hawks, he began to play a lot better defensively against better fours in the league.
As a sixth man, Saric can take that same level of intensity and offensive prowess and bring it into moments where the Sixers may need to change it up.
The bench for tonight's contest now includes Markelle Fultz, who is still nursing a shoulder and knee injury. It's unclear how much that injury will affect Fultz's playing time tonight, but I expect to see him get a decent amount of looks and playing time off the bench.
Also part of that "second team" for the Sixers off the bench is Nik Stauskas, Justin Anderson, and Amir Johnson.
In fact, Amir Johnson may just be the most intriguing of the bunch tonight, because Jahlil Okafor is questionable to play due to an illness. Johnson is a stretch five player, so he will most likely be the center when Embiid is out of the game due to his minutes restrictions.
I'm also looking forward to seeing how Brett Brown uses T.J. McConnell in the game, especially since I wasn't even sure if McConnell would make the team following the conclusion of preseason. But McConnell's hustle and being a key player in the Sixers' defensive plan, shows that he's actually pretty efficient in the times the team brings him out.
Watch out for the Wiz
The Wizards have a lot to prove tonight, especially against a tough, young opponent in the 76ers.
The Wizards fell to the Celtics in seven games in the Eastern Conference Finals last season, and most of the key players that brought them to that point are back.
John Wall and Bradley Beal headline a team that has been on the up-and-coming for the last couple seasons. They are very much a contender in a reeling Eastern Conference.
Otto Porter is an intriguing player at small forward, and was even a guy the Sixers may have wanted to consider in free agency last season, but he's back and will have a test in having to guard a tough defender in Robert Covington.
I think the Wizards have a lot of question marks surrounding their bench in terms of depth, but with a top point guard and really all-around player in the NBA in John Wall, the sky's the limit for this Wizards team.
Marcin Gortat will get the start for Washington tonight, but guarding Embiid is a very tall order indeed.
With Jerryd Bayless most likely guarding John Wall tonight, and J.J. Redick having to guard Bradley Beal, it's going to be hard to handle the offensive firepower the Wizards are about to throw at the Sixers right out of the gate.
The key to the Sixers' success is making sure the Wizards don't get out to an early lead and limit the Wizards' possessions off of turnovers. The Sixers will have to be able to capitalize off of the Wizards' mistakes and use them to their advantage early and often.
| Matchup Preview | October 18, 2017 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Broadcast Info
When: 7 p.m. ET
Where: Capital One Arena, Washington D.C.
Watch: ESPN
Listen: 97.5 The Fanatic, 97.3 ESPN FM South Jersey
