Phan: How Kyrie Irving’s Absence Is Impacting My Celtics-76ers Bets

Tuesday's NBA slate features five games with injuries and questionable players. We'll analyze tonight's key situation:

• Boston Celtics at Philadelphia 76ers: 8 p.m. ET on TNT

Note: The information below is as of 2:30 p.m. ET. For up-to-the-minute news and analysis, check out our live news feed and follow us on Twitter.

Boston Celtics

Injuries: Kyrie Irving (knee) is out.

Injury background: Irving suffered the knee strain during the second quarter of Saturday’s loss and didn’t return. He is considered day-to-day.

Irving didn’t practice on Monday, and it seems highly unlikely that he’ll play on Wednesday vs. the Pistons in the second leg of a back-to-back with the All-Star break coming up.

Tonight’s impact: Irving has the biggest Net Rating differential of any Celtics player this season, as the team is 5.2 points per 100 possessions better with him on the court vs. off. They’ve fared just fine without him in the lineup, however, going 7-2 in the nine games he’s missed.

A deeper dive into those nine games reveals a sample littered with weak opposition and games the Celtics were well-equipped to win even without Irving. Only one of those nine games was against a team with a record above .500 (Utah), and they lost that game by eight on the road.

When the Celtics are either on the road or facing a team .500 or better, they’re 0-4 ATS and 2-2 straight-up in that sample.

The Sixers are the toughest test the Celtics have faced this season without Irving, and their new starting lineup featuring Tobias Harris has been phenomenal. That unit has posted a Net Rating of +23.8 (!!) in 30 minutes with a +17 scoring differential.

They’ll also be at home, where they boast the league’s fourth-best efficiency differential (+10.1), and will likely add Jonathon Simmons to the rotation to bolster their second unit.

The Sixers have already been bet up to -7 at most books, and there’s still value at the number even up to -7.5.

Joel Embiid should be back to 100 percent after laboring through an illness recently, and coach Brett Brown has done well staggering rotations so the duo of Jimmy Butler and Joel Embiid or Ben Simmons and Tobias Harris is always on the floor.