Sixers lose another heartbreaker in Cleveland, but get dash of hope with Joel Embiid back on the road
Embiid was present at Friday morning’s shootaround, though Nurse said the big man did not partake in the game-planning portion and instead stuck around for additional on-court work.
CLEVELAND — Following their own down-to-the-wire loss to the Cavaliers, several 76ers were locked into Friday’s overtime thriller between the New York Knicks and San Antonio Spurs.
Tyrese Maxey and Kyle Lowry leaned over the same cell phone propped on a chair between their locker stalls inside Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. In the corner, Nico Batum held his own phone in his lap, the veteran Frenchman saying he tried to tell everybody for years about Victor Wembanyama. And on the room’s opposite side sat Joel Embiid, who only momentarily took his headphones out when Maxey asked how the Spurs defended him when he dropped 70 points in late January.
That last bit was a reminder of what this season once was, and what the most optimistic Sixer still hopes could be.
» READ MORE: Sixers’ late loss to Cavaliers sparked by Georges Niang’s game-high 25 points against former team
Embiid is back on the road with his team for the first time since his early February knee surgery, although he was ruled out for Sunday’s game at the Toronto Raptors. Coach Nick Nurse continues to express belief that, barring an unforeseen recovery setback, the NBA’s reigning Most Valuable Player will return to game action before the end of the regular season. That means that day is at least inching closer, given there are now only eight games and about two weeks to go before the playoffs. And that remains a requirement for the Sixers to salvage what had been such a promising 2023-24 campaign.
“That’s always a positive for the team, that you see him around,” Nurse said of Embiid before Friday’s 117-114 loss in Cleveland, “and they know he must be moving forward.”
The Sixers are 10-22 since Embiid’s 70-pointer against the Spurs, which coincides with the disastrous road trip when Golden State’s Jonathan Kuminga’s fall on Embiid’s leg prompted the meniscus procedure. And the Sixers have missed opportunities — with single-digit losses to the Los Angeles Lakers, Los Angeles Clippers, and Cavaliers in the past eight days — to move out of the play-in tournament. Instead, the Sixers enter Saturday 1 ½ games behind the seventh-place Miami Heat and 2 ½ back of the sixth-place Indiana Pacers, following two consecutive losses when they had a chance to tie or take the lead in the waning seconds.
“We’ve just got to close those games out,” said Maxey, who missed the potential game-tying three-pointer against the Cavaliers to complete a 7-of-26 shooting performance. “That’s two games in a row that we should have won.”
Embiid was present at Friday morning’s shootaround, though Nurse said the big man did not partake in the game-planning portion and instead stuck around for additional on-court work. He is now to the point in his ramp-up where he needs to go against “live bodies” — aka, teammates and player-development coaches — and more of those humans exist in the travel party than back in Camden.
Awaiting Embiid’s teammates Friday night was, theoretically, a possible first-round opponent. That would likely require the Cavaliers moving into the No. 2 spot — they exited Friday 1 ½ games behind the Milwaukee Bucks — and the Sixers beating the Heat in the play-in (either at home or in Miami) to secure the seventh seed.
These teams have had similarly injury-riddled seasons, though the Cavaliers surged while playing without Darius Garland and Evan Mobley earlier on but sputtered without All-Star guard Donovan Mitchell. The Cavaliers — with explosive guards, imposing big men, and dangerous shooters — are also an interesting case study in what the Sixers could soon boast with Maxey, Embiid, and outside threats, such as the newly acquired Buddy Hield. Yet when asked if facing a possible postseason foe down the stretch of the regular season allows for any bigger-picture thinking or experimentation, Nurse acknowledged the Sixers “don’t have that luxury at all.”
“I would love to be able to have that as a thought,” the coach said. “But I’ll be completely honest with you, we’re putting our A-plus scheme package together and we’re not holding anything back right now. We’ve got to throw it all out there to be in the game and give ourselves a chance to win.”
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Nurse received a similar question about three weeks ago during two consecutive games at Madison Square Garden, when a 4-5 matchup between the Sixers and Knicks was plausible. But the Knicks are now five wins better than the Sixers and a threat to move up to the third seed, even after Friday’s loss to the Spurs and ongoing injury concerns about All-Star big man Julius Randle and elite three-and-D wing OG Anunoby.
The coach continues to be pleased with his team’s recent defensive progress, though lamented breakdowns against Cleveland that, among other things, helped ignite Georges Niang’s game-high 25 points against his former team. The Sixers’ offense remains one of the league’s worst since Embiid’s injury, but Lowry’s 23 points (his highest-scoring total as a Sixer) could be a positive sign. Nurse is also hopeful some growing pains will pay off when Embiid (and, potentially De’Anthony Melton and/or Robert Covington) return — yet is also bracing for hiccups during reacclimatization.
“Everybody just thinks, ‘We’re back and everything should be perfect,’” Nurse said. “And it doesn’t work that way. It usually messes you up again for a little bit, until you get that figured out and get the connectivity pieces put back together.”
Potentially helpful is that, per Tankathon, the Sixers enter Sunday with the easiest remaining strength of schedule, with matchups against the Raptors, Memphis Grizzlies, Detroit Pistons, Brooklyn Nets, and Spurs included in their remaining eight games. That two of San Antonio’s 18 victories have come this week against the Knicks and Phoenix Suns, however, is evidence that an opponent’s winning percentage does not guarantee a future result. And it has been difficult for more than two months for the Sixers to consistently, in Nurse’s words, “pick off” wins against anybody.
Only eight regular-season chances remain. Yet the Sixers’ dash of hope was the MVP in a hoodie, whose presence was back in a visitors’ locker room.