Phoenix Suns can pull a Baltimore Ravens against the Philadelphia 76ers

The Baltimore Ravens gave the New England Patriots their first loss of the season last night. Similarly, the Phoenix Suns hope to beat the only unbeaten team in the NBA, the Philadelphia 76ers.

The New England Patriots took their undefeated record into Baltimore last night and played a Ravens team that is performing better than expected this year. In the end, the Ravens handed the Patriots left their first loss. The Phoenix Suns have a chance to do the same thing to the undefeated Philadelphia 76ers when Ben Simmons and company come to Talking Stick Arena this evening.

Sort of like the Patriots who were one of two remaining unbeaten teams, the 76ers are the only undefeated team left in the NBA. And like the Baltimore Ravens, the Phoenix Suns are preforming better than anyone expected thus far this season.

Unlike the NFL matchup parallel, the Suns’ game will not be nationally televised, as is the case with nearly all of their games, but a win would make an emphatic statement around the league that these Valley Boyz are for real.

The other difference between this sport mashup analogy is that the Ravens and Patriots were at full strength, while the Suns and 76ers will both be without their star centers.

Deandre Ayton, of course, is still serving his suspension for testing positive for a diuretic, while Joel Embiid earned his own suspension by getting in a wrestling match with Karl-Anthony Towns last week.

Since this is a Phoenix Suns blog, there has not really been a reason for me comment on that incident, but now that the Suns play the Sixers during Embiid’s suspension, here is another take on the fight you didn’t ask for:

By all accounts, Karl-Anthony Towns is the nicest human on the planet. I’ve heard him described as, “So nice, he doesn’t even seem real.”

Embiid, on the other hand, acts like a bully. And like most bullies, they can interpret niceness as weakness and they attack it. A similar thing happened with Jimmy Butler and Towns last year.

In short: call me the president and CEO of Team Towns.

If Embiid were playing against the Suns, he would think twice before starting something like that with Aron Baynes.

Even without Joel Embiid, the Sixers are going to be one of the Suns’ most toughest challenges thus far. With Ben Simmons, Al Horford, and Tobias Harris still at the core of this team, the Suns will need to bring every bit of the energy they have had through the first six games.

Suns fans can help by making Talking Stick Arena as rowdy as Ravens fans did M&T Bank Stadium. The Sunday Night Football crowd were loud throughout the game, and made it a hostile environment for the Patriots.

Suns fans need welcome the 76ers in similar fashion.

In fact, they will have their chance to get loud several games in a row because the Suns are starting a 6-game home streak tonight. And if you look a little further, they play seven of their next eight games at home.

If the Suns can take advantage of that favorable scheduling, they will cement themselves as a formidable contender to every team in the league.