We're all friends here so I figured you could stand a bit more college basketball talk minutes before Selection Sunday officially gets underway.  Whatcha think?

Earlier today the inevitable was announced. Dwight Howard was officially suspended for game six. Easy win right? Wrong. 

The Magic can, and will win tomorrow if the Sixers take them for granted. The Sixers are a young and inexperienced team. This season alone they've already been embarrassed by the Thunder without Kevin Durant, and needed overtime to beat the Cavs without LeBron. There is no reason the Magic cannot do the same without Howard.

The Magic still have Hedo Turkoglu and Rashard Lewis. In fact, the Magic have already won two road games without Dwight this season -- at Utah and at Golden State. Game six is still a playoff game and the Sixers need to act accordingly. It's obvious that the Magic are going to play the "Let's win this one for Dwight!" card, so the Sixers better match their intensity, otherwise they'll get blown out of the gym. 

Seated next to Superman on the bench will be Super-rookie Courtney Lee. Ironically Lee is also sitting out because of Dwight's famous elbow. Howard's 'bow inadvertently caught Lee in the face subsequently fractured his sinus. Ouch.

Orlando is likely to roll out a starting lineup of:

PG - Alston

SG - Pietrus

SF- Hedo

PF- Lewis

C- Gortat

If the Sixers play like they have for the first five games of this series, they will beat the Lee and Howard-less Magic. That said, the fact that the game -- and the season -- depends on a young Sixers team to come out and play with the same intensity they would have had Dwight been playing, has me extremely frightened. It's human nature to let up when your opponent is weakened. Only the great ones overcome it.

Tony Kornheiser brought up an interesting point on PTI. He said the Sixers should be upset that Howard was not tossed from game five. Him and Wilbon both agree, if Howard was tossed in game five, the Magic would have lost and headed back to Philadelphia down 3-2. A home game up 3-2 is obviously much easier to win than game seven on the road, which will be the scenario if the Sixers win game six. My response: I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear that we were robbed. I don't want to hear excuses. Should Dwight have been tossed at the time of the incident? Yes. Would it have been more beneficial for the Sixers? Yes. However; that's not the way the cookie crumbled. The NBA did their best to rectify the situation by suspending Howard. They did the right thing and I'm not going to blame them for it. I hate "coulda, shoulda woulda" statements. Everyone got what they wanted -- a Howard suspension -- now it's time to man up and win two games.

Let's go!

Stop me if this sounds familiar. The Sixers go into the playoffs as huge underdogs. They end up shocking the world by stealing game one on the road. In the days following, all the "experts"-- including the ones who said they wouldn't win a single game -- said their opponent gave the game away and they still had no chance.

Yeah, in case you haven't noticed, this year's scenario is exactly the same as last year's. Or is it? Simply glancing at the two series, one would think that a game two loss for the Sixers is inevitable, but let me tell you why I think this year will be different.

Luck Factor

Many believe the Sixers were lucky to win game one. Oh really? Were the Sixers lucky that Dwight Howard shot 11-13 from the field and 9-12 from the line? Were the Sixers lucky that Dwight dropped 31 and 16? Were the Sixers lucky that the Magic shot 49 percent from the field? No, no, and no.

Last year the Pistons shot 39 percent. Rip Hamilton was 5-17 from the field, Rasheed Wallace was 9-21, Chauncey Billups was 3-9, and Tay Prince was 5-13. They only had only one over-achiever in Jason Maxiell. The Magic on the other hand, received monster performances from Dwight Howard and Courtney Lee.

The Sixers were lucky last year: fact. The Sixers were lucky on Sunday: fiction.

Experience

Last year's Pistons were coming off four-straight conference finals and a championship. This year's Magic have won only one more playoff series than the Sixers in the past 5 years.

Last year was Andre Iguodala's first playoff series as "the man" and Thaddeus and Lou's first real playoff experience. 

It's safe to say -- especially after watching game one -- Iggy, Lou and Thad are all different players. If you've watched any Sixers games this season you know Thaddeus "baby legs" Young has improved his offensive skills greatly, you know Andre Iguodala's jewels have doubled in size, and you know Lou Williams can score consistently -- none of which were true last season.

Last year: Sixers experience < Pistons experience.

This year: Sixers experience = Magic experience.

New additions

Against the Pistons, the Sixers relied on the likes of Reggie Evans, Jason Smith and Rodney Carney to play quality minutes. This year Reggie's minutes have decreased significantly (Thank God) and the Smith/Carney combo has been replaced by the veteran trio of Donny-Ice, Theophilus Ratliff and Royal Ivey. The bench has been upgraded wouldn't you say? 

Evans/Smith/Carney <<<< Marshall/Theo/Ivey.

I haven't even mentioned the most exciting new addition -- Marreese Speights. Mark my words, M16 will make a huge difference in one game this series. He's the ultimate X-Factor.

Bottom Line: Are the Sixers immune to a game two letdown? No. But do I feel more confident going into this game two than last year's? Yes. I think the first quarter is going to ultimately determine the outcome.

Less than 24 hours away from game two. Get pumped!

The scoreboard read "51 Pistons, 33 Sixers". I sat motionless in my super-sized LoveSac. Deep down I knew the season was over. The Sixers were simply over-matched. Questions ran through my head. Can the Sixers come back? Should I even bother with the second half? After regrouping and blinking for the first time in 5 minutes, I decided how I was going to handle the final 24 minutes of basketball. I was going to watch it, enjoy it, accept it, and dream of next season.

Well, what do you know? Nearly 12 months later, the moment has arrived. This is what I envisioned on my SuperSac. This is a chance for the Sixers to introduce themselves to the world. No one has given them a chance. Media members *cough* Bill Simmons *cough* have even gone as far as calling them "awful" and "terrible". The only way to change their opinions is win.

We are officially 13 hours away from tip-off and I've previewed everything there is to preview -- stats, injuries, history. Enough with numbers and previews. Let's do the thang already.

We all know the Magic are a thousand times better on paper. We all know they have Dwight Howard. And we all know what the Sixers need to do to win. (3-point differential, defensive rebounding and free throws.) So, instead of polluting your minds with more useless numbers and strategies, I'm simply going to tell you in a couple sentences how excited I am, and leave you with a few YouTube clips to get you pumped!

How excited am I? As excited as I've ever been to watch a basketball game. Need I say more? On the flip side, I'm as nervous as a 6-year old school boy about to ask his secret crush if she wants to share a bag of cheddar fries. I think the game will go one of two ways -- good or bad -- there's no in between.

Don't ask me why I have faith in this 41-win Sixers team who has disappointed me time after time this season, because I won't have an answer. There's just something a special about this group of guys, and the sky's the limit.

God, it's now two in the morning and I don't even know what I'm saying, so I'll stop.

Watch these.

We Will Rock You.

Win.

Zumoff + Iguodala = chills.

Final countdown.

Try and get some rest.

Come hungry.

Come excited.

Expect big things.

THIS IS PLAYOFF BASKETBALL!

LET'S GO SIXERS! CLAP CLAP CLAP-CLAP-CLAP!

Bill Simmons and his buddy Joe House had an NBA playoff preview podcast (extra points for alliteration) and didn't have very nice things to say about the Sixers or their series. Take a look.

BS: Orlando/Philly, God what a crap series that is. Ughhh.

JH: It's, you know, the East has one crap series every year.

BS: Annnd here it is.

JH: That's right. Each year, the last handful of years there's been one, and it always seems to involve one of these teams.

BS: Yeah.

JH: Wasn't last year's Orlando/Detroit?

BS: I think the worst thing about this series, I'd be fine with it... well I wouldn't be fine with it, cause Philly's just terrible.

JH: Yeah.

BS: But... two bad crowds.

JH: Yeah, right.

BS: Orlando's crowd sucks, and Philly's crowd is worse, like you can extensively have 5,000 of your own fans at a Philly playoff game... which Orlando won't because they don't have 5,000 fans total.

JH: I wonder if what happened here in Washington is the same thing as in Philly, cause you remember back in the day Philly used to have crazy crowds for hoops. 

BS: Yeah, but it was very, like the current Warriors crowd -- very urban -- a nice mix blend of people, but you know even back then, they didn't even sell out  some of those Celtics playoff games.

JH: Oh okay.

BS: But I agree with you that the spirit of the crowd was much better. They had a better announcer, Dave Zinkoff was their announcer.

JH: Yeah, yeah, that's right.

BS: Now it's like, new arena umm....

JH: Who are the fans? Who goes to those?

BS: I don't know, I mean, they, you know, they have uhh, the Eagles and the Phillies I think are just so far more important -- and even the Flyers.

JH: Sure, yeah.

BS: Sixers are a distant fourth. It's gonna be a awful series and I'm gonna try to watch as little of it as I can. But here's the thing though, if Turkoglu's hurt (sigh) maybe that's goes seven.

JH: Is he hurt?

BS: Yeah, he's hurt, he hurt his ankle last week.

JH: I mean, I know that he didn't play, right, but is he hurt, hurt? That's what I meant to ask.

BS: I think he like, really sprained it.

JH: Huh.

BS: And he was already slow anyway

JH: So, if he doesn't play... I like the magic in six.

BS: I'm gonna say 5, only because i think Philly just bites.

JH: Okay.

BS: No offense to the Philly fans, but I think they know -- I think they'd be the first to admit. And if Thad young was healthy, maybe 6, but even he's a little banged up, so...

JH: Yeah.

React as you wish. I'm going to keep my cool this time, because last time Simmons said horrible things about the Sixers -- I got super pissed -- and he ended up being right. But you better believe I'll be bringing this up if we upset the Magic, especially if we play the C's in the second round.

P.S. If you want to listen to the blasphemy with your own ears, this conversation takes place between the 14:33 and 16:43 minute mark in the podcast.

No pun intended.

I just finished some number-crunching -- nothing special -- just some three-pointers. I've discovered that the 34% is the magic number as far as opponent's three-point percentage in concerned.

Record when holding opponents below 34 percent:

24-14

Record when opponents shoot 34 percent or higher:

17-27

Two things.

1. I was shocked the Sixers held their opponents under 34 percent almost as often as as they didn't.

2. The key to the series just became more specific: Hold Orlando below 34 percent four out of seven games and win. Don't, and lose.

For the record, the Magic shot 41, 36, and 35 percent against the Sixers this season. There's no coincidence that their 3-0 against us.

So remember the number "<34", not to be confused with <3.

If you want to be able to say "I told you so" after the series, post your official prediction in the comments. Otherwise, it's like you never did.