I know a lot of people don’t like numbers, but what if I told you there was one out there that would spare you the trouble of reading the rest of this column? I suspect many of you would take that deal, so let’s proceed. The number in question is the number of points that the Sixers starters have scored minus the number of points that they have allowed (the dorks refer to it as “point differential"). Over an average of 100 possessions, i.e. the length of your average NBA game, the Sixers’ top unit is outscoring its opponents by 8.1 points. All by itself, it is a rather lonely number that does not say much. But when considered in comparison to the numbers posted by the top lineups of the other five teams at the top of the Eastern Conference, the relevance becomes clear: