PHILADELPHIA — Not even 20 games into the season, the Philadelphia 76ers on Sunday afternoon had to craft a starting lineup without three of the guys Nick Nurse pointed to on opening night.
The 76ers of 2024-25 were forced to adapt until they broke. This year’s squad was built with more interoperable pieces.
But in Sunday’s matinee 127-117 loss to the Miami Heat, the 76ers looked a player or two short.
Everyone in the NBA seems to be these days, so the scale is relative. But even against the Tyler-Herro-less Heat, the Sixers found themselves in a deficit.
Kelly Oubre Jr. remains out. Joel Embiid (knee) missed his seventh straight game and ninth in his last 11. VJ Edgecombe missed his first game as an NBA player, reporting calf tightness. Imaging revealed no injuries, so the team held him out as a precautionary measure.
Quentin Grimes started in his place, his first start of the season. Justin Edwards started for the third straight game.
Three of the starters were in the negative on plus-minus, led by Edwards (in the wrong direction) at minus-21. Grimes didn’t score for his first 14 minutes, picked up five fouls by early in the second half and was limited to 15 points on 6-for-14 shooting and a minus-12.
The heap of injuries adds to the worry around Tyrese Maxey, who played while favoring his left shoulder from the first quarter on.
He was still occasionally outstanding, like two 3-pointers late in the first half, one a 35-foot heave to beat the shot clock. But 27 points on 10-for-23 shooting wasn’t enough for this group to win.
“Just the best we can,” Nurse said of the juggling. “We plug in and do what we think we need to do, start who’s next in line, try to figure out what the matchups look like, who we’re playing, all that kind of stuff. And try to make some decisions that work. Some of them do. Some of them don’t, obviously.”
The most glaring problem might have been in the lane Sunday.
Andre Drummond had an exemplary game with 14 points and 24 rebounds, his seventh double-double in his last nine games. But the Heat won the rebounding battle, 58-46, thanks to 20 points and 16 boards from Kel’el Ware and 18 and 13 from Bam Adebayo.
Nurse diagnosed the issue as Ware getting settled into a rhythm against the backup pivots, which currently include the undersized Dominick Barlow and Jabari Walker, with Embiid and Adam Bona out.
“The biggest challenge was I think he really got going when we got into our rotations for Drum being out,” Nurse said. “His size was just a little too much for our other guys tonight with what we had out there. So then we tried to do as much as we could of matching Drum with his minutes.”
One conundrum that is resolving is Jared McCain, though the Paul George question liners. McCain, who went scoreless in his first four games, had a season-high 15 points in a season-best 26 minutes. He shot 3-for-4 from 3-point range after starting the season 3-for-13 beyond.
His progress puts him in line for more normal minutes, even once Edgecombe returns.
“It definitely felt the best,” McCain said. “I think each game is just getting more reps on the knee and more reps of movement, but I felt really good today. I felt like I got a little burst from my first step, and just continuing to build off each game.”
George remains a puzzle. Nurse started him but didn’t use him to open the second half. The logic was matching his minutes to the Heat’s top second-unit scorer Jaime Jacquez. George played 12 of his 20-minute allotment in the first half.
He shot 3-for-10 for 10 points with five assists. He was 0-for-5 from 3-point range.
The pieces that Nurse has to deploy are going to continue shuttling through the injury report. Consistency is what his team needs most, a commodity plenty of other teams are missing, too. If it doesn’t come in terms of personnel, they have to force it by other means.
“I think who is in and out of the lineup is out of our control,” Drummond said. “We start with that. I think the guys that do play, we play to the best of our ability. We’re playing good teams. It’s hard to find a rhythm when we don’t know who we’re playing with on a nightly basis. So still not an excuse, I think this game was very winnable for us, just a few mistakes down the stretch of the game.”
Source: Berkshire mont
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