The Sixers tip off a pivotal road trip against the Chicago Bulls

CHICAGO — The 76ers are an enigma.

There’s no other way to describe the franchise as it has yet to answer several critical questions nine weeks into the season.

It’s easy to point out that the Big Three of Tyrese Maxey, Joel Embiid, and Paul George have only played three games together. And that they’re winless in those games after Tuesday’s 114-106 loss to the Brooklyn Nets at Xfinity Mobile Arena.

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Bombarded with injuries and illness, the Sixers have yet to play with a full roster. But they’re 16-12 and in fifth place in the Eastern Conference. The Sixers are 1½ games behind the third-place Boston Celtics, whom they defeated twice this season. And their signature win was Dec. 19’s 116-107 road victory over the second-place — and NBA Cup champion — New York Knicks.

But with offseason uncertainty surrounding Embiid and George following left knee surgeries, the safe preseason projection for the Sixers was the NBA Play-In Tournament.

We may get a better idea of how good they are during the upcoming post-Christmas, five-game road trip. The Sixers open the road trip on Friday against the Chicago Bulls, who are riding the conference’s longest winning streak at four games despite having a 14-15 record.

Then, on Sunday, they face the defending NBA champions and the best team this season, the Oklahoma City Thunder. After facing the Thunder (26-5), the Sixers will play the Memphis Grizzlies on Tuesday and the Dallas Mavericks on New Year’s Day. They’ll conclude the five-game trip with a rematch against the Knicks (21-9) on Jan. 3.

Like the Bulls, the Grizzlies (14-16) and Mavericks have shown recent improvement. Dallas (12-20) is 7-5 after opening the season 5-15. The Mavs also won their last five home games.

“It will be a good test to play some really good teams,” George said of the road trip. “It will for sure be a test for us. But we’ve been playing great basketball, despite this loss [Tuesday night to the struggling Nets],”

Before that loss, the Sixers had won six of eight games, with their two losses coming to the Los Angeles Lakers (Dec. 7) and Atlanta Hawks (Dec. 14).

“So we’re playing pretty good basketball,” George said. “[Tuesday] was one of those nights we were a little bit flat. And we’ll pick up the pieces and keep it moving.”

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But George doesn’t see this as a defining road trip because the Sixers still don’t have their full complement of players.

Embiid is not expected to play in every game of this road trip because of management of injuries to both knees and soreness. Kelly Oubre Jr. (LCL sprain in his left knee) and Trendon Watford (adductor strain in his left thigh) remain sidelined. And VJ Edgecombe, Dominick Barlow, and Quentin Grimes were sidelined against the Nets (9-19) with illnesses.

Embiid, Edgecombe, Barlow, and Grimes are listed as questionable for Friday’s game

“As far as defining us, it’s still early,” George said. “We’re playing good basketball. Our record doesn’t indicate how well and challenging it’s been. We haven’t had a full roster at any point this season. Whether I’ve been down to start the season, myself and [Watford]. I come back, Kelly goes down. You know, Joel has been injured. Tyrese has been sick.

“So we really haven’t had a full roster. So it’s hard to tell what we are, who we can be.”

But the Sixers are eager to avenge their 113-111 loss to the Bulls on Nov. 4 at the United Center, when they blew a 24-point lead.

The Sixers relied heavily on Maxey and Embiid, either in the two-man game or in one-on-one situations, that night. The problem was that neither player could get anything going down the stretch, as the Sixers missed their final 11 shots from the floor.

Maxey finished with a game-high 39 points. However, he had eight points on 2-for-8 shooting in the fourth quarter. Embiid was worse. He was held scoreless on 0-for-5 shooting in the frame. That came after he scored two points on 1-for-5 shooting in the third period, and he finished with 20 points on 7-for-21 shooting.

The Bulls went ahead 113-111 on Nikola Vučević’s game-winning three-pointer with 3.2 seconds left. It was their only lead of the game.

The Sixers must maximize everyone’s talent and move the ball if they expect to be competitive. They must also find a way to contain Josh Giddey, who had 29 points, 15 rebounds, and 12 assists in that meeting. The guard is averaging 16.6 points, 10.6 rebounds, and 7.8 assists in the last five games against the Sixers, along with that triple-double.

Meanwhile, Vučević has tallied five double-doubles and one triple-double across his last 10 games against his former team. In addition to containing the duo, the Sixers will look to snap a three-game series losing streak.

They also believe this 10-day road trip will benefit team growth.

The trip will “get us out of our home market and be with each other on the plane, on the team bus, at the hotel, like, actually get a chance to do a few things together, too,” Andre Drummond said. “We have a couple of days in between games, too. So I know we’ll set up some team activities and really continue that bonding experience that we’re feeling right now.”

And we may get a better idea of how competitive the Sixers are, even while being undermanned.

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