PHILADELPHIA — Eric Gordon is coming off one of the best 3-point shooting months in 76ers history. He’s also starting February with knee soreness.
Gordon missed Sunday’s game against the Boston Celtics, though coach Nick Nurse is hopeful that it’s a short-term concern.
Nurse couldn’t point to a specific incident in Friday’s 137-134 loss to the Denver Nuggets, but Nurse allowed that he, “noticed him laboring a little bit in the second half.” He reported left knee soreness Sunday.
That didn’t stop Gordon from shooting 4-for-4 from 3-point range for 11 points Friday, including a pair of triples with four minutes left just when the Nuggets had gotten out to a 6-point lead.
Gordon shot 52.6 percent (41-for-78) from 3-point range in January. That’s the third-highest percentage in the NBA in January and the second-highest in franchise history for a month, behind Kyle Korver’s 54.4 in December 2005, both with a minimum 70 attempts.
Gordon, who struggled so mightily that he fell out of the rotation in December, has scored in double figures in six of the last seven games and had hit multiple 3-pointers in 12 of his last 13 games.
“His shooting has been awesome,” Nurse said pre-game. “It’s been uplifting. It’s a couple in a row to either reignite us and get back in the game or extend the lead. When we swing it over to him and he bends down and gets ready to shoot, no matter if he’s 35 feet away, I think everybody in the building thinks it’s going to go in lately.”
Gordon has played an odd hybrid role — Nurse called it, “quirky” — as the shooting guard on offense with his floor-spacing range and a de facto power forward for the undersized 76ers on defense.
His defensive assignments in the last week have included Nikola Jokic and LeBron James, Gordon using his stout frame and know how to cope with bigger bodies in the paint.
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Without Gordon, Ricky Council made his fourth start of the season, joining Tyrese Maxey and Justin Edwards in the backcourt.
Council is coming off three consecutive double-figures games, including a 29-minute stint against Sacramento Wednesday in which he was a plus-28.
The lineup is the 29th different starting five in 48 games. No lineup has been deployed more than four times.
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Caleb Martin, who hit seven 3-pointers in a win in Boston on Christmas, was upgraded to a game-time decision Sunday but ultimately missed his 12th straight game with a right hip strain.
Martin and the rest of the 76ers took part to varying degrees in an optional practice Saturday.
That included Paul George (left pinkie), for whom the team seems to have devised a splint solution allowing him to play. Joel Embiid (left knee) practiced and took part in an extended pre-game workout at the Center.
“Hopefully the rest of them we’re going to see at some point this week,” Nurse offered.
Embiid has missed 15 games with the knee and before that a foot sprain suffered in Boston. George missed his fourth straight game.
The 76ers head into a back-to-back Tuesday and Wednesday. First is Dallas, shorthanded and emotionally reeling from the Luka Doncic trade to the Lakers. The primary return in that deal, Anthony Davis, remains out with an abdominal strain he suffered last week in Philadelphia with Los Angeles, though Doncic has also been out with a calf strain. Kyrie Irving (shoulder) is also recovering.
The Mavericks gave up 91 points in their first half of basketball after the Doncic deal Saturday in a 144-101 loss in Cleveland. The Sixers wrap up a six-game homestand Wednesday with Miami, which arrives under the cloud of Jimmy Butler trade rumors.
Source: Berkshire mont
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