Sixers are back, but won’t be on NBC Sports Philadelphia much the next few weeks

After more than a week off, the third-place Sixers (38-19) are back in action Thursday, but good luck finding upcoming games on NBC Sports Philadelphia.

Thursday’s matchup against the Memphis Grizzlies (35-22) at the Wells Fargo Center will air on TNT at 7:30 p.m., with Kevin Harlan and Reggie Miller on the call. The Grizzlies resume play in second place in the Western Conference, and it’s just the third time in franchise history they’ve reached 35 wins ahead of the All-Star break.

Meanwhile, the Sixers are preparing for what they hope will be a long playoff run. Joel Embiid is second in the NBA in scoring, averaging 33.1 points per game, and dropped 32 points at Sunday’s All-Star Game despite lingering left foot soreness.

“We have a long season ahead, second half of the season,” Embiid said earlier this week. “Once I get there, the main goal is to win. That’s what my focus is: Go out and do whatever it takes to try to accomplish that goal to win a championship.”

Four of the next six Sixers games will air on TNT or ABC, though that should come as no surprise looking at who they’ll face. On Saturday they’ll take on the first-place Boston Celtics (42-17) on ABC, and next Thursday they face Kyrie Irving and the new-look Dallas Mavericks (31-29) on TNT.

Overall, the Sixers will face winning teams six times in the next 10 days, and have the most difficult schedule remaining of any NBA team, with their opponents combining for a .541 winning percentage, according to Inquirer columnist David Murphy.

“The Sixers are going to show us who they really are over the next month,” Murphy wrote. “How that ends up being is anybody’s guess.”

One broadcast quirk of the Sixers upcoming schedule comes on March 7, when they’ll face the Minnesota Timberwolves (31-30) at the Target Center in Minneapolis. The game will air nationally on TNT, but it’s a nonexclusive for the network that will also air locally on NBC Sports Philadelphia (though it will be exclusive to TNT in Minneapolis).

The Sixers have won 13 of their last 16 games, and are on pace to end the season with 54 wins, which would be the most since Allen Iverson led the team to 56 wins during the 2000-2001 season on the way to the NBA Finals. That also happens to be the last time the Sixers have reached the Eastern Conference finals.

The Sixers have 25 games remaining, and 18 of them will air on NBC Sports Philadelphia or NBC Sports Philadelphia+, with Kate Scott and Alaa Abdelnaby on the call. Sixers pre- and postgame coverage is hosted by Amy Fadool Kane alongside former Sixers coach Jim Lynam and former NBA player Marc Jackson.

As far as TV ratings, national NBA games on TNT, ESPN, and ABC are averaging 1.6 million viewers per game this season, which is even with last year, according to Sports Media Watch. NBC Sports Philadelphia hasn’t released ratings info for Sixers games, but the team’s Christmas matchup against the New York Knicks averaged 4.07 million viewers, making it the fourth most-watched game so far this season.

Here’s the Sixers schedule for the next two weeks:

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