The Sixers’ six-game road trip continues Saturday night in Salt Lake City when they take on the Jazz. It’s not a traditional road trip, with teams often staying in one region of the country, as this one is booked with games in Boston and Brooklyn with four Western Conference teams in between. Even the Western Conference opponents are a bit scattered on the map, with a trip to the mountainous region of the country that doesn’t include Denver, and Portland, Monday’s opponent, may be the furthest team in the league.

But enough with the geography lesson and on to basketball. As winners of eight of eleven games, the Sixers must be feeling good for the first time this season. However, they are still 11-17 and certainly haven’t quite climbed out of the hole they dug for themselves at the start of the season. These upcoming games appear to be good opportunities for the team to continue its march to .500. Utah and Portland have combined for just 17 wins through the first two months of the season, while Sacramento is also under .500 and just fired head coach Mike Brown.

As bad as the first six weeks were for the Sixers in 2024-25, they largely took care of business against inferior competition, picking up four wins against Charlotte, a win in Chicago and defeating the Nets in their first meeting with Brooklyn. Between the Jazz, Trail Blazers, Kings, Warriors and Nets as the final game of the trip, there’s really no reason why the Sixers should finish the trip at less than 4-1. That would put them at 15-18 this season and even have a chance to finish above .500 after 41 games at the halfway point of the year.

Before anyone gets too far ahead of themselves, let’s remember that the Sixers never make things easy. I’m sure the Warriors game will also bring back brutal memories, as it was a game in San Francisco in January of last season in which Joel Embiid initially injured his meniscus, which is still under strain to this day. As we continue to look at the schedule, things get significantly more difficult after this road trip, further underscoring the importance of piling up wins now.

A home game against Phoenix on January 6th will be the Sixers’ first game at the Wells Fargo Center in 2025. From January 6th through a home game against Miami on February 5th, the Sixers will play 13 games against teams that were there last season made it to the playoffs. There are also five games in a row this month. The trading deadline is February 6th.

A month of games against almost exclusively playoff teams will provide clarity on how good this Sixers team can be, and they’ll be in time for deadline day. Including the four games from January 6th to February 5th against lottery teams from last season, there are a total of 17 games the Sixers will play from their return home to the trade deadline. Given the tough competition, a 9-8 mark over that 17-game stretch would probably be pretty good.

But this also puts another emphasis on taking care of business for the rest of this road trip. The Sixers are still six games under .500. If they fail to get close to breakeven next week, they will likely remain well below .500 at the deadline. At this point the season will be 50 games old.

For what it’s worth, two of the teams in last year’s Eastern Conference play-in tournament finished under .500. Surely the Sixers could do just enough with a poor record to qualify for the play-in tournament. But that’s really the worst outcome for the season and would basically guarantee that the team doesn’t fall into the playoffs and doesn’t keep its top-six protected first-round pick.

Philadelphia needs to continue playing well on this road trip and move up in the standings. If that happens and the Sixers can tread water and stay near .500 before the trade deadline, there is still plenty of time after the deadline to finish above .500 and avoid the play-in tournament a realistic result. Good teams take care of business and avoid mishaps. That’s the next task for the Sixers after an impressive win in Boston.