A rematch of the top seeds of each conference takes place tonight as the Sixers welcome the Utah Jazz to their home court. With the Jazz sitting at #1 in the West with a 27-8 record, and the Sixers atop the east sitting at 23-12, this will be a good test for the two teams heading into the all star break.

Joel Embiid will look to finish off the first half of his MVP caliber season strong, while going up against the 2nd best defender in the league tonight in Rudy Gobert. If getting bullied by Zion wasn’t enough for Rudy this week, he’ll have to go up against the MVP front runner big man tonight. A standout performance from Joel tonight will have a big impact on his MVP bid. Due to his absence earlier in the year, Jo will get a chance to go at the big man for the first time since December 2nd, 2019.

Ben Simmons will look to continue his dominance of the past month and a half on both sides of the ball with a tough task in guarding Donovan Mitchell. Although us Sixers fans aren’t the biggest fan, Mitchell has been playing great basketball this year. The 24 year old is averaging 24.4 points on 42.5% from the field, tacking on 5.4 assists which is a career high by more than 1 assist. Ben has been a straight up demon on defense this year, and nothing will change tonight, while being the best defender on the court.

As of this afternoon. Tobias Harris is listed as questionable with a right knee bruise. Although you’d love to see the full starting 5 on the court tonight in a big game, it would not surprise me for Tobias to take the night off with this being the last game before the All Star Break. The Sixers will look for Seth Curry and Danny Green to have big games from deep tonight, as the team has not announced Tobias’ status just yet. The Sixers got outshot from deep by Utah by 23 3PA in their last meetup, which will need to change tonight if this team wants to come out on top.

With arguably the biggest game of the year taking place tonight, the Sixers will look to silence the doubters and cap off their strong first half with a promising win against a hot Utah Jazz team. Look for this to be a shootout, with big games from our MVP and DPOY.

Featured Image: Mitchell Leff / Getty Images