Sixers will be facing an uphill battle against Raptors, but they are tough to bet against in Game 7 | David Murphy

TORONTO - Anybody who claims they know what to expect on Sunday evening was not playing close attention to the first six games of the series. As Raptors coach Nick Nurse pointed out after the Sixers’ dominant win in Game 6, we’ve seen three different versions of each team. There have been two blowouts by the Sixers, two by the Raptors, and two evenly-matched games.

The safest bet is that the victor of Sunday’s win-or-go-home Game 7 -- and, thus, the winner of this Eastern Conference semifinals series -- will be the team that hits its shots. That’s essentially been the case in each of the series’ first six games. When all is said and done, the stat lines of players like J.J. Redick and Tobias Harris and Mike Scott and Danny Green and Kyle Lowry and Pascal Siakam could tell an even bigger tale than the performances of centerpiece stars like Joel Embiid and Kawhi Leonard.

Yet there are a number of potential X-Factors, starting with Embiid and Leonard themselves. Both players have shown the ability to turn in the sorts of outings that can almost single-handedly propel a team to victory. Very rarely do they square off against each other within the flow of play, but theirs is a matchup that could very well determine who advances and who goes home. If Embiid plays as he did in Game 3, the Sixers will be an awfully tough out. Likewise for the version of Leonard we saw in Games 1 through 4.

At the margins, though, the advantage would seem to lay heavily with the Raptors. Take, for instance, the sort of game that Mike Scott was describing on Saturday afternoon as he talked about the only do-or-die experience of his professional career.

»READ MORE: In Sixers-Raptors Game 7, the team with the best shot will have the best shot | Keith Pompey

“It’s a little bit more physical, chippier, if that’s a word,” said Scott, who was a member of the Hawks when Atlanta lost a 92-80 slugfest to the Pacers in the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs in 2014. “Of course, the crowd. You’ve got to cherish each possession, take care of the ball for the most part, get buckets, be physical, and try to win the game.”

This is a rare series where the Sixers do not have a dominant physical advantage. Leonard, Kyle Lowry and Marc Gasol are all high motor players with centers of gravity that are difficult to move. The smaller the court gets, the less the Sixers are able to play their optimal style of game.

Enhancing the Raptors’ edge in this department will be the fact that they are playing at home. While road teams have won two of the last three Game 7s in the NBA postseason and are 4-4 in their last eight, the home team has historically held a huge advantage with a 76-22 record since 1976. That’s a significantly higher percentage than home teams overall during that stretch (.652). Then again, that’s not necessarily a function of the home court, since the home team in Game 7 is also the higher seeded team (and, thus, the series favorite, at least in theory).

Home court advantage has been even more pronounced in the conference semis. The last road team to win a Game 7 in that round was the Magic over the Celtics in 2009, with the last five instances going to the home team (including the Celtics’ 85-75 win over the Sixers in 2012. Since 1984, road teams are just 6-28 in Game 7s.

“I think we’re all excited, we’re all anxious to play,” Tobias Harris said. “We understand, obviously, being here again and playing here, that we have to bring our own energy. We’ve got to pick each other up and embrace each other and have confidence in our team and what we are going to do.”

»READ MORE: Jimmy Butler says his previous Game 7 experience means nothing ahead of series finale against Raptors

Another factor is the Raptors’ experience in do-or-die situations. Lowry and Kawhi Leonard have both started in three Game 7s, including Lowry’s brilliant performance in a 116-89 win over the Heat in the conference semis in 2016, when he finished with 35 points, nine assists, seven rebounds, and four steals while hitting five of seven from three-point range.

Leonard’s success has been limited. In his three Game 7s, he’s scored just 47 points in those games, shooting 20-of-44 from the field and 3-of-13 from three-point range. But two of those outings came when he still in the first act of his career, before he blossomed into one of the league’s elite scoring machines. Raptors center Marc Gasol has played in two Game 7s.

Among Sixers starters, J.J. Redick has played in four Game 7s while Jimmy Butler has played in one.

“Playing in Game 7s are different," said head coach Brett Brown, who coached in two Game 7s during his time as an assistant in San Antonio. "My experiences and my memory are one of that the per-possession mentality is heightened. If you all want to be entertained, go back and watch fourth periods of Game 7s. Everything is just zoomed in. It’s just raw.”

One way or another, Sunday is going to be one of those moments that, years from now, we will look back on as a defining day in the post-Process Era. The Sixers are most definitely the underdog. But the path to victory is there.