Sixers guard Cameron Payne to miss rest of regular season with hamstring strain
The team said that he will be reevaluated in approximately two weeks, assuming the Sixers advance to a first-round playoff series.
Cameron Payne will miss the rest of the 76ers’ regular season with a hamstring strain, the team announced Sunday evening.
Payne, a veteran point guard, sustained the injury during Saturday’s home loss to the Detroit Pistons. An MRI Sunday confirmed the strain, the Sixers said. The team added that he will be reevaluated in approximately two weeks, assuming the Sixers advance to a first-round playoff series.
Payne, who returned to the Sixers in February after beginning the season playing in Serbia, has averaged 7.4 points, 2.6 assists, two rebounds, and 1.1 steals in 17 minutes of 22 games. Though Payne’s rotation minutes have dwindled as the Sixers have returned to full health, he has been an experienced ballhandling option behind All-Star Tyrese Maxey and rookie standout VJ Edgecombe.
Joel Embiid, who missed Saturday’s game to due to oblique injury management and an illness, was not listed on Sunday evening’s injury report.
The Sixers (43-35) enter Monday’s marquee game at the San Antonio Spurs still in a tight race for postseason seeding with four games remaining. They were in sixth place as of Sunday night, with the same record as the Toronto Raptors but holding the tiebreaker because of division record. Both teams were one game ahead of the eighth-place Charlotte Hornets, and two games behind the fifth-place Atlanta Hawks.