The story of these next 12 games were written on Doc Rivers’ face. Sitting in front of the camera after a fourth straight loss, the coach allowed his eyes to drift toward the floor, as if the answer to how things could have been different might be buried beneath his feet.

“It was a great week for us before the week started,” the head coach said, his brow flickering upward in resigned disappointment as he made his peace with a 132-94 loss to the Bucks. “Looking at this week, we’re gonna get some great competition with Phoenix, Golden State, these two games. Looking at them, I thought we would be pretty healthy. It just didn’t turn out that way.”

If this was a normal NBA season, Rivers and the Sixers might have the leeway to shrug their shoulders at the latest plot. They are still in second place, still virtually assured a top three seed in the Eastern Conference, still in control of their postseason fate.

Ben Simmons will miss his fifth straight game on Monday because of the flu.
CHARLES FOX / Staff Photographer
Ben Simmons will miss his fifth straight game on Monday because of the flu.

Still ...

Last week was a lost week, and there aren’t many weeks left. A compressed season compresses its implications. At this time last week, the Sixers looked like a team with a chance to lean into its final turn. They had a full lineup, four matchups against quality opponents, two of them against one of their top rivals in the East. And then they didn’t.

Now, here they are: 12 games left, a game behind the Nets, a game-and-a-half in front of the Bucks, a potentially hellish road to the NBA Finals laid out before them. For the first time in a long time, some urgency is in order.

They have three priorities: get healthy, get in rhythm, get the No. 1 seed. Most years, that last one would be a bonus. But when you look at the standings and start projecting playoff matchups, you quickly realize that 2020-21 is not most seasons.

Which one of the three would you rather play in the first round: the Hornets, the Heat, or the Celtics? Who would you rather play in the second: the Knicks or the Bucks? Who would you rather play in the conference finals: a Nets team coming off series against the Hornets and the Knicks or a Nets team coming off series against the Celtics/Heat and the Bucks?

Right now, the chasm between those pairs of potential opponents is the same size as the one between the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds. If the playoffs started on Sunday instead of three weeks from now, the Nets would face Charlotte in the first round and either New York or Atlanta in the second. Meanwhile, the Sixers would need to beat two of Boston, Miami and Milwaukee to advance to the conference finals. Given what we thought we knew about this conference at the start of the season, the difference between those two roads through the East is almost laughably absurd.

At the moment, the relevant question is whether the Heat and/or Celtics are still teams to be feared. Are they really the sixth and seventh best teams in the conference? Or are they a couple of sandbaggers who have spent the regular season rounding themselves into postseason form?

Given the way this season has played out, nobody should be surprised if it ends up being the latter. That’s a daunting proposition for a Sixers team whose first-round opponent could end up being either the team that has knocked them out of the playoffs in two of the last three years or the team that represented the East in last year’s NBA Finals. While neither the Celtics nor the Heat have looked anywhere close to the caliber of those previous years’ teams, they are still the kind of opponent that rarely confronts a top-four seed in the opening round. Take Miami, for instance: In their last 40 games, the Heat are 25-15, the same as the Sixers.

A lot of this depends on factors outside the Sixers’ control. The conference could easily end up in a more natural order. The Celtics and Heat both entered Sunday within two games of the fourth seed. That said, they face each other twice, and the Heat also have games against the Sixers and the Bucks. The Celtics’ road looked easier before their blowout loss to the Hornets on Sunday. Now, they are closer to the eighth seed than they are to the fifth.

Maybe there is your best-case scenario: the Hornets somehow finish ahead of the Celtics, setting up a first round matchup between Boston and Brooklyn. The Heat end up as the fourth or fifth seed and await the Nets in the second. You can argue that Brooklyn would prefer that road than having to face the Sixers or Bucks in the second round. It all depends on what you think the Celtics and Heat are.

For the Sixers, the best-case scenario is to get some court time together. Ben Simmons has missed four straight games. Joel Embiid has missed 13 of 24, Tobias Harris four of eight, Seth Curry five of 19. They’ve had their full starting lineup for less than half their games, none of which have come since the arrival of George Hill. They need to get their rotations down. They need to get Hill comfortable with the guys he will be sharing the court with. They need to rediscover the rhythm they had for the first three months of the season.

“We want to be the No. 1 seed. That’s been our goal from the beginning of the year,” said Harris, who has been battling a bone bruise in his knee. “We’ve got to do that the best way we can with getting everybody healthy. From there, play our game and do what we have to do to win basketball games.”

They don’t have many opportunities remaining. The loss of an entire week was hardly ideal.

“We’ve got 12 games left,” Rivers said on Saturday. “Hopefully, by the time we play [next], we’ve got more guys on the floor.”

Less than 24 hours later, the Sixers ruled Simmons out for his fifth straight game.